Account of practice G: The Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD)
Project time frame: September 2009-October 2010
Introductory narrative
The ARCS project was especially concerned to understand church from the perspective of a variety of outreach initiatives. Our work with the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD - https://cafod.org.uk) gave us the opportunity to work with an agency which was, at once, an agency of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, and a development charity employing a wide variety of personnel, and working with more than 5,800 volunteers, largely through Catholic parishes. The development work of CAFOD is focused in more than 40 countries, largely in the global south, and is shaped by working with local partners in the countries in which they operate. As a Catholic charity, CAFOD seeks explicitly to root its work in a normative tradition - specifically, that of Catholic Social Teaching (CST). Its core values - of compassion, hope, dignity and solidarity - are directly related to the central tenets of CST, and form recurrent themes within the organisation’s self-articulation.1 All this presents CAFOD as a particular kind of agency of outreach, with a complex identity comprising a legal charity, a development agency drawing down state funding and a faithbased organisation mandated by the Bishop’s Conference and part of the international CARITAS network,2 with a significant financial and volunteer base within the Catholic community. Its intentional embodiment of a church (normative) tradition is also of particular interest to the ARCS project.
We approached CAFOD on the basis of this particular identity, and also aware that it had a longstanding practice of developing theological work as an accompaniment to its practical development work. As well as a Theological Reference Group, consisting of leading Catholic scholars, the agency also had a Spirituality Team, with a particular remit for the formation of employees (of all faiths and none) in Catholic Social Teaching and its core values. At the time of approaching CAFOD concerning possible research, we found that a member of staff in that team3 was embarking on doctoral studies in practical theology and so was particularly interested in how the organisation went about theological reflection. Her energy and interest in theological action research as a methodology, and the support of her line manager, gave the initial impetus for the research.
This sense of a common understanding of the project enabled strong ownership from CAFOD from the beginning. After initial meetings, the research questions identified by the CAFOD team focussed on the question of how the traditions of CST were both embodied by, and influenced by, the organisation’s practices:
How do we make use of Catholic Social Teaching to inspire and drive our work in overcoming poverty and injustice?
How does CAFOD contribute to the development of Catholic Social Teaching to make a difference in the world?
(Remit Document)
The aim, as set out in the same document, was to “strengthen the organisational capacity of CAFOD to use Catholic Social Teaching as a resource to overcome poverty and injustice in the world” through deepening staff’s knowledge of CST.
The methods of data gathering were particular to CAFOD, and designed by the member of the Spirituality Team who co-ordinated the insider work. A particular challenge was around the structural busyness of the organisation, and finding time for people to reflect and share. In addition, the desire to reach those with experience of working overseas - a core part of the agency’s identity - presented logistical geographical problems. The resulting research model brought together groups of staff in the organisation following on from an introductory session held by the inside co-ordinator in her professional capacity. In each of the four subsequent workshops, employees were asked to present material that was ‘live’ in their work, so that the group might reflect on the questions that arose in the light of CST. The resulting discussions were transcribed, and both the insider team and the ARCS team reflected upon data. In a joint meeting, both sets of reflections were shared and discerned together, following the now-established practices of theological action research.
We were conscious of working here with a professional development agency, which was asking its employees to take time out from extremely demanding schedules to engage in ‘theological reflection’. Time pressures continued to be a constraint on the work, but the organisation’s commitment to theology and a Spirituality Team as integral to their structures enabled the research to be supported and enabled. Indeed, the staff involved were able to testify that being asked to step away from immediate tasks, and focus on core and foundational ideas that underpinned their work, was enormously helpful - often in ways that they hadn’t anticipated.
