Cross International: Charity and Evangelisation

(Vatican Radio) A passion for the poor. And a belief in power of the Gospel to transform people’s lives. Those are the two founding principles of a Florida based charity called Cross International Catholic Outreach. Founded just over a decade ago to help fund existing aid projects across the developing world, Cross currently supports innovative programmes for the poorest of the poor in Africa, Asia, South America and the Caribbean.

“We began in 2001 and our vision was to support the Church’s ministry of charity which is already there in the developing world…..”

Jim Cavnar is President of Cross International, which counts seven U.S. bishops on its board of directors. He was here in Rome recently for a visit to the Vatican’s charitable agency, Cor Unum, with which Cross has been cooperating closely for the past few years. On this occasion, Jim told Vatican Radio’s Philippa Hitchen, he was sharing ideas about the role of charitable giving in promoting both new evangelisation and the forthcoming year of faith, scheduled to begin in October of this year. For Jim himself, the event will bring back powerful memories of the previous Year of Faith, called for by another Pope back in the summer of 1967…..

Listen:

“I very clearly remember a Year of Faith that began on June 29^th 1967, it was the summer I had graduated from college …..we were stepping out in faith, with no visible means of support but trust in God….. yet the steps we took, beginning on that very day, transformed our lives and let to what we’ve done over the past 45 years....

Cross has always been involved in the Church’s ministry of charity, but we’ve always sought out those projects that involve evangelisation…

Transformation in the lives of the poor means helping them become more self-sufficient, less dependent on hand-outs. But we also recognise that the most effective transformation comes about when God is part of it…..”