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O Holy Night…

For me it is so special to be with family at Midnight Mass to start the Christmas Season.  It is so wonderful singing and hearing the entire congregation singing, “O Holy Night.”

As Vincentians, this great Christmas song touches all our hearts.  It puts into words the special time when the Word became flesh and the bright light of Christ entered the world.

I love the first verse, but the third verse is where our Vincentian charism truly comes to life: “Truly He taught us to love one another; His law is love and His gospel is peace. Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother; And in His name all oppression shall cease. Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we; Let all within us praise His holy name. Christ is the Lord! Then ever, ever praise we!  His power and glory evermore proclaim!”

Our charge from Christ is to make the words of this song come to life by growing together spiritually and making our world a better place.

In putting together this article I learned that “O Holy Night” was inspired by a church’s renovation. A parish priest in Roquemaure, France asked a local poet, Placide Cappeau, to write a poem for the Christmas Midnight Mass to commemorate the recent renovation and installation of the stained-glass windows and organ.  In 1847, it was put to music by composer Adolphe Adam.

This beautiful song was banned for a time because the lyricist was an atheist/socialist, and the composer was Jewish. However, the power of the way the words described the beauty of the birth of Christ prevailed, and this became one of our most beloved Christmas songs.

Many saw this song as controversial, even though it communicated the love of God powerfully and clearly. In a similar way, we may experience challenges when others see our Vincentian work to love others as controversial.

Many people judge those who are poor and vulnerable, and by extension judge those who try to help them. But no matter the challenges we face, we are called to overcome them to bring Christ’s bright light to the world. And I personally see our Vincentians doing this all the time – 2025 was an incredible year for the Society!  Yes, we had our challenges from the economy that impacted those we serve, but we were up to the task at hand and responded.

We had an incredible year of serving our neighbors in need, seeing Christ in the millions we served.  We grew together spiritually in friendship to face any challenges that came our way.

We established our Washington, D.C. office so we could fulfill our Vincentian calling to be a Voice for the Poor.  We did not go to our nation’s capital to be changed, but instead to change the mindset of our national leaders as Christ calls us to do in this magnificent song.

Thanks to our phenomenal Vincentian Servant Board Leaders, 2026 will be another great year for our Society!

I started this article with a Christmas song we all know and love, but I am going to end with one you may have never heard of.  It’s a song released the year I was born (1966) – “If Every Day Was Like Christmas” by Elvis Presley.

I know you will embrace this lyric from the song: “For if every day could be just like Christmas, What a wonderful world this would be.”

Thank you for making this a wonderful world by your commitment and dedication to our Society.  Truly by living and breathing the Vincentian charism, you are working hard to make every day be filled with the Christmas spirit of hope for those we are so blessed to serve.

Best wishes and Merry Christmas,

Michael Acaldo

The Wish We Live: Personal Relationships in the Heart of Service

When I moved to Georgia almost 34 years ago, it didn’t take me long to become a country music fan. Seems unlikely for a hardcore rock and roller who grew up on the beach. But it happened (let me clarify that I do not mean the old time ‘twangy’ country music of the ‘50s and ‘60s; that doesn’t do it for me).

There’s a song that I especially fell in love with. It has touched millions of hearts over the years. It’s by the country music group Rascal Flatts called “My Wish.” A song so simple and yet so profound that it transcends genre, age, and circumstance. It speaks of wishes. Not the frivolous desires we sometimes chase, but the deep, sacred longings we hold for those we love. When I consider the work we do at the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, I find myself returning again and again to those verses, to that chorus that captures something essential about what it means to serve another human being.

The songwriter penned those words thinking of his youngest daughter. He wanted her to know, in a world that felt overwhelming and complex, that someone was thinking of her. Someone cared about where she was going. Someone believed in her. That simple act of holding another person in your heart and expressing that devotion; that is the essence of what I see reflected in every Vincentian I meet.

Listen to the heart of the song’s message: the wish that “days come easy, that moments pass slow, that dreams stay big and worries stay small.” Those aren’t material wishes. They’re wishes for peace, for hope, for the assurance that someone believes in you and wants good things for your life. This is precisely the work we do. Every single day.

You know, anyone can give things. Anyone can open a checkbook or drop off food or clothes, and those are wonderful, important acts of love. But what you as Vincentians have chosen to do is far more difficult and infinitely more sacred. You have chosen to ‘know’ people. You have chosen to see them. And in that seeing, in that genuine encounter, something holy happens.

Let me be honest with you, although you, no doubt, already know it. Service at its finest can be deeply uncomfortable. We want to help, yes, but we also want our helping to feel good, to feel efficient. We want to cross items off our list. What the Society of St. Vincent de Paul asks of you is harder than that. It asks you to sit with someone – really sit with them – to to listen to their story, to understand not just their material need but their dignity, their dreams, their place in this world. When you do this, you are honoring them as a beloved child of God, not as a project to be completed or a box to be checked.

The refrain of “My Wish” keeps returning to a simple but profound truth: the hope that when you’re down and alone, you’ll know somebody loves you. This is the gospel made manifest through your hands, your presence, your willingness to show up. When you visit someone in their home, when you listen without judgment, when you remember their name and ask about their children, you are communicating that fundamental message: ‘You are loved. You are not alone.’

I think of a person I once helped; let’s call her June. You all, no doubt, have a similar story. June came to us, and by all objective measures, what she needed was clear: food assistance, help with rent, connections to housing resources. A volunteer coordinator could have checked those boxes. But instead, I spent hours listening to her story. I learned that June had been a teacher in her home country. I learned about her grandchildren. I learned what made her laugh and what kept her awake at night. And in that time, something shifted. June was no longer a “case” or a “neighbor in need.” She became a person to me. A person I cared about.

This is what the song means when it speaks of someone knowing that somebody loves them. It’s the recognition that another human being cares about your dreams, about whether your burdens are too heavy to carry. When June sat with me, I prayed that she felt that care. That she felt someone wishing her well in the truest sense. That she felt less alone in the world.

The song ‘My Wish’ speaks of wishing that someone would find you where you are – not where they think you should be, but where you actually are. This captures something crucial about our work. We don’t ask people to clean themselves up before we help them. We don’t demand that they have their lives together. We meet them exactly where they stand. We see the person beneath the circumstances. We recognize that homelessness, poverty, and struggle do not diminish someone’s fundamental worth and humanity.

Our culture tells us that efficiency is everything. That we should do more with less, that our time is a precious commodity to be guarded. But the gospel tells us something very different. The gospel tells us that time spent with another person, truly and fully present, is not time wasted, it is the very substance of love made visible. You know this instinctively. That’s why you’re a Vincentian.

Think about the relationships you’ve developed through your time as a Vincentian. I’ll bet that many of them have surprised you. You came prepared to give, but you received something too. Perhaps you met a man who, despite his homelessness, greeted you each week with a joke that made you laugh. Perhaps you encountered a woman who, though she had almost nothing, offered you tea and gratitude with such graciousness that you felt humbled. Perhaps you saw resilience that shamed your own complaints, faith that deepened your own faith.

This is the sacred dance of authentic service. The poor teach us as much as we serve them. The people we come to help often carry wisdom that no amount of education or advantage could have purchased. When we approach them with genuine respect, when we acknowledge them not as problems to be solved but as people to be known, we create space for true encounters. We stop looking down and start looking eye to eye.

“My Wish” speaks of wishing that you never need a reason to smile and that your life becomes a beautiful story you can’t wait to tell. How many times have you witnessed that transformation? Someone who arrived defeated and hollow-eyed, and weeks or months later, because someone believed in them, because someone insisted on their dignity and their possibility, they began to smile again. They began to imagine a future. They began to tell their story not as a tragedy but as a journey.

You are the architects of that transformation. Not because we have unlimited resources or miraculous solutions, but because we offer something far more valuable: We offer presence. We offer encounter. We offer insistence that their life matters and that their story is not over.

I know it’s tempting sometimes to create distance, to maintain professional boundaries that keep us safe from the messiness of real relationship. It’s easier to help if we don’t get too close, isn’t it? But I believe deep in my heart that the heartache of close relationship is worth every moment. Because when you truly know someone, their struggle becomes your struggle. Their joy becomes your joy. You can’t compartmentalize it into “volunteer hours.” It changes you.

A wish, when it comes from the depths of our hearts, is a kind of prayer. When “My Wish” speaks of wishing that the days come easy and the moments pass slow, it is expressing a longing for another person’s well-being that transcends the ordinary. It’s a blessing. And what are we doing here, if not blessing one another?

Every time you show up, you are making a wish for the people you serve. You’re wishing them dignity. You’re wishing them hope. You’re wishing them the knowledge that someone, somewhere, sees them and believes in their worth. You’re wishing for them what we all wish for ourselves: to know that we matter, that we’re not invisible, that our lives have meaning.

I want to be clear about something. The relationships you build aren’t pleasant extras to your volunteer work – they are the work. They are the point. The material assistance we provide matters, profoundly. But it is secondary to the fundamental message you communicate simply by showing up, again and again, with respect and genuine interest in their humanity. You are saying: ‘You are worth my time. You are worth knowing. You matter.’

The song’s refrain returns again and again to this simple truth: When you’re down and alone, may you know somebody loves you. In a world that often treats people as disposable, that judges worth by productivity or wealth, that looks away from suffering, that is something countercultural. It is insisting on the sacred worth of every single person.

As we move forward, I want to encourage you to lean into these relationships more deeply. Don’t be afraid of the emotions they stir in you. Don’t pull back because it hurts to know someone struggling. Let yourself care. Let yourself be changed by these encounters. That vulnerability, that openness of heart, is where the real spiritual growth happens.

And on days when the work feels overwhelming, when you hear stories that break your heart or when systems seem immovable, remember that your worth is not measured by what you can fix. It is measured by how faithful you are to showing up with love. Sometimes all we can do is accompany someone in their suffering. And sometimes, that is everything.

The wish we live out here, as members of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, is not so different from the wish in “My Wish” by Rascal Flatts. It’s a wish that someone would care. That someone would see us. That we would know we’re not alone. It’s a wish that we would have the strength to carry our burdens, not alone, but supported by a community that genuinely believes in us and wants the best for us.

So: Keep wishing. Keep believing in the people you serve. Keep showing up with your whole heart. Keep building relationships that honor their dignity and reflect the profound truth that we are all children of God, all beloved, all worthy of love.

The people we serve aren’t the only ones being blessed. We are being blessed too. And thus, our capacity to love, to see deeply, to connect authentically is growing. We are becoming more fully human, more fully alive, more fully reflecting the image of Christ in our midst.

That is the wish worth making. That is the life worth living.

So this Christmas, and every day of the year, may we all have the courage to hold that wish close, and may we live it out with every encounter, every conversation, every moment we choose presence and relationship over efficiency and distance. May we never forget that what we offer to those we serve is the assurance that when you’re down and alone, you know somebody loves you.

That is the gospel. That is the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. That is why we are here.

Merry Christmas and may God Bless you and your family,

John

Should We Think of the Society as an Apostolate or a Ministry?

In Catholic Church circles, there has been a debate over the last 20 years about what to call church groups – “ministries” or “apostolates.”  “Ministry” seems to be the favorite as it’s easy to say, but in recent years there has been more of a push to use the word “apostolates.”  I want to argue the Society of St. Vincent de Paul is more of an apostolate and why it’s important.

In the book, Modern Catholic Dictionary by John A. Hardon, S.J. (from my area of Southwest Michigan), Fr. Hardon defines ministry as “authorized service of God in the service of others, according to specified norms revealed by Christ and determined by the Church.”  This means:

1. service of God, who is glorified by the loving service given to others
2. authorization by the Church’s hierarchy … this authorization may require ordination …
3. based on the teaching of Christ, who showed by word and example how to minister to people’s spiritual and temporal needs;
4. under the guidance of the Church in accordance with her directives and decrees.

Based on the above, I think the easiest way to think about a “ministry” is that it’s concerned with the Sacramental mission to bring people to Christ through the Sacraments. All four of Hardon’s definitions directly connect to the Sacraments. While   it is a great cause of the Church to connect people to the Sacraments, it is not necessarily the mission of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.

We have a unique calling, and a unique ability, to witness our faith not just within the Church, but in the world. Frédéric explained that our Church and world lives are not split into two: we need to both determine the truth and to live it. This is why he was insistent that the Society remain “profoundly Catholic without ceasing to be lay.” In addition, the universal call of the laity to the apostolate, there are groups defined under Canon Law as lay apostolates, including the Society of St. Vincent de Paul. Despite not being a “ministry,” we always remember that living an apostolate or charism includes, definitionally, serving the good of the church.

What is an apostolate?

The word “apostolate” comes from the word “apostolic,” meaning that the Church, through the succession of and following in the example of the apostles, is SENT out into the world to spread the Gospel.  So, an apostolate is an organization that is sent out to spread the Kingdom of God.

“Indeed, we call an apostolate ‘every activity of the Mystical Body; that aims to spread the Kingdom of God over all the earth.’” – (CCC, 863)

I was working at a parish in Chicago when after Mass, an usher SENT me to see a man who was asking for help. His name was Joseph.  He was in an old military jacket and kind of intimidating. He told me he needed help, so I sat down and talked to him.  Mostly, I just sensed he wanted a friend, so I became his friend. I invited him to the church brunch which was happening at the same time right then. People looked at him and me kind of oddly, but we sat and had a meal together. Afterwards, I invited him to come to join me next week at daily Mass.  In those days, I looked after my 3-month-old daughter while I worked, so sometimes I was a little late making it to Mass, and I was late the day he came.  The daily Mass people were a little taken aback when Joseph came to Mass, but when he mentioned my name, they eased up a little. Afterwards, I invited him to come and sit with my daughter and I in my office. This made my priest boss a little upset that I would invite “a man like that” to be so close to my daughter and “I had to think about protecting my family.” But then I explained that I was trained as a Vincentian at another parish and Father Bob was quickly on board. “Oh, I didn’t know you were a Vincentian!”

Joseph and I would often sit during daily Mass and afterwards he would come to my office and talk with me and play with Naomi. I visited him quite a few times in his little dorm room he called a one-room apartment, which was above a bar. As time went on, he was getting more involved in the parish and offered to help grill during our parish picnic. People were starting to get to know him. Then suddenly, I got the call that Joseph died.

Father Bob asked me to lector at Joseph’s funeral. I came up to the ambo, 9-month child in my arms, and proclaimed the Word of God being very clear that I was connecting Joseph to a holy person in my gestures and silence. Afterwards, Joseph’s father came up to me, as Joseph had been estranged from the family. He asked, “You knew my Joey?”  I told him how we would sit in daily Mass together. He was so touched that Joseph came back into the Church, and the Church welcomed him.

The Holy Spirit SENT me to that moment. From the time I was a 10-year-old in the DRE’s office to now where I am a DRE, I don’t know exactly what the Holy Spirit is. I don’t know the Holy Spirit’s plan or exactly what He wants me to do. But tell me any story, and I can point him out. I love that Guy! He helps empower people to SEND people where we need to go.

Based on the Holy Spirit, the Society SENDS out Vincentians to encounter our neighbors in need. We do not just sit idly by; we are active in our apostolate.

The Vincentians see they cannot do this work alone. Vincentians SEND requests to pastors and parishes to get funding, food and more volunteers to help alleviate suffering of our neighbors in need.

Pastors SEND their parishioners to help or join the Vincentians in their mission.

Parishioners SEND their donations to the parish, which Vincentians are more than happy to organize, for our neighbors in need.

Vincentians see the need for greater organization and elect Conference and Council presidents and SEND them to our national assembly for their input and training to continue to grow our Conferences and Councils.

Conferences SEND Vincentians to Ozanam Orientations so we can be trained and respond to those we serve.  That Ozanam Orientation helped me respond to Joseph.

Vincentians see the overwhelming need and SEND Vincentians to do systemic change.  Systemic change is transformation. It is to change the systems, structures, mindsets, policies, and root causes of poverty. Systemic change is not the symptoms; it is holistic; it is collective action; it is complex and strives for a lasting impact. By embracing the apostolate nature of being sent by God, we strive toward systemic change in all things of the Society.

Voice for the Poor SENDS Vincentians to our government officials to advocate for our neighbors in need. Sometimes we go in person. Sometimes we send messages via voter voice. You can join voter voice here: https://ssvpusa.org/take-action.

Blessed Frédéric Ozanam prayed for faith and consecrated his life to God’s service (Apostle in a Top Hat, pg. 28). When the early Vincentians were forming the Society, Blessed Rosalie Rendu trained them and SENT them to the poor. We are grateful to be sent out in Jesus’ name in the instruction of Blessed Frédéric Ozanam and Blessed Rosalie Rendu. They too were SENT to help instruct us. Just as we strive to SEND ourselves to train others in our apostolate.

Below is a closing prayer and reflection. It is said that “the law of prayer is the law of belief” and so I thank the national spirituality committee for the recent update of the closing prayer, which you can purchase here: https://ssvpusa.org/product-category/spirituality/

This prayer, which includes the word “apostolate,” is part of the inspiration for this column. As spiritual advisor in my Conference, I use it as part of the closing prayer. Please note, I’ve adapted the prayer slightly to include the word “encounter” which our National President John Berry, has encouraged us to think about.

Father, grant that we who are nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist may realize the depths of our needs, respond more spontaneously to the suffering of others, and come to love You more deeply by service to our neighbor. 

Grant us also the wisdom and strength to persevere when disappointed or distressed. May we never claim that the fruitfulness of our apostolate springs from ourselves alone.

United in prayer and action, may we become a visible sign of Christ, and may we give witness to his boundless love which reaches out to all and draws them to love one another in Him.

We thank You, Lord, for the many blessings which we receive from those whom we encounter. Help us to love and respect them, to understand their deeper needs to share their burdens and joys as true friends in Christ. 

Amen.

Blessings,

Bobby Kinkela

OUR INCREDIBLE JOURNEY – AND IT IS FAR FROM OVER!

November 20 is a special date for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA. This date marks the anniversary of an event that changed the face of charity in the United States. A date that we celebrate with gratitude this year as we commemorate 180 years since the Society of St. Vincent de Paul was founded in America.

In 1845, in St. Louis, Missouri, at the Basilica of St. Louis King of France (“Old Cathedral”), a small group of laypeople gathered to establish the first SVdP Conference in the United States. What they didn’t know, and never could have imagined, was that this humble beginning would grow into a nationwide network of nearly 81,000 members serving our most vulnerable neighbors with dignity, respect, and genuine friendship for nearly two centuries.

Let’s take a trip down ‘memory lane’ for a moment.

The Atlantic Crossing and a Divine Appointment

The story of SVdP in America begins with an encounter (it is always about encounter) on the high seas. In the autumn of 1845, Father John Timon, a Vincentian priest from Pennsylvania, was traveling from Ireland to the United States. In his hands, he carried something special: copies of the ‘Rule of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul.’ Having just seen the amazing work of Vincentians in Dublin, Father Timon felt called to bring this charism across the Atlantic.

When Father Timon arrived in St. Louis and spoke with Bishop Peter Richard Kenrick about what he had seen, the Holy Spirit moved the Bishop’s heart. He asked Father Ambrose Heim, a local priest who was known for his work with the poor (so much so that he was known as ‘The Priest of the Poor’) to help establish the Society in St. Louis and serve as its Spiritual Advisor.

And just like that, the Holy Spirit lit a fire that has burned for 180 years and counting!

The first meeting on November 20, 1845, brought together men of vision and heart: Dr. Moses Linton, a prominent physician, was elected President and his friend Bryan Mullanphy, widely known for his generous philanthropy, became Vice President. These men and their fellow members understood something essential that remains at the core of our mission today: that serving the poor is not primarily about what we give, but about the relationships we build. It’s about encountering Christ in every person we meet.

The St. Louis Conference was officially recognized by the Society’s International Council in Paris on February 2, 1846. The movement that had begun just twelve years earlier in Paris with young students challenging one another to live their faith more authentically had now reached across an ocean to a young nation hungry for the Gospel to be lived out in action.

Growth and Spreading Grace

What followed was nothing short of remarkable. Just as the Society had spread across France like wildfire, so too did it take hold across America. Conferences began forming in New York (1847), Buffalo (1847), Milwaukee (1849), Philadelphia (1851), Pittsburgh (1852), and soon in every corner of the nation. By the end of the nineteenth century, the Society had established seven major jurisdictions stretching from coast to coast, and in 1857, New York organized the first District Council in the United States.

In those early days, women could not be members, and women’s groups operated in parallel to the men’s society. For example, the Women’s Society of St. Vincent de Paul was founded in Italy in 1856 to support women and children, a role that men were not handling at the time. But in 1968, the SSVP CGI voted to allow women to become full active members, although women-only and men-only conferences continued to exist initially, and new conferences were encouraged to be co-ed. The society’s international rules were changed after 1968, and the process of integrating women continued over the next few years in different countries.

These early Vincentians, many of them immigrants or children of immigrants, understood poverty. They knew what it meant to struggle. They saw firsthand the conditions facing newly arrived families from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and beyond. Beyond distributing aid, they advocated tirelessly for systemic change. They fought to reform almshouses that treated children like prisoners. They established schools, founded boys’ clubs, opened orphanages, and created industrial training programs. The Society didn’t just respond to poverty; it worked to change the systems that created it. That is our approach today as well, and that early focus on advocacy and justice – with roots back to Ozanam and the Founders – animates our work today.

One of the major turning points in the SVdP USA story occurred in 1915 when leaders from seven major councils, New York, St. Louis, New Orleans, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn, made the visionary decision to unite under a single national structure. The Superior Council of the United States instituted on June 7, 1915, with the formal inauguration ceremony taking place at the Catholic University of America on November 21, 1915. The first president of SVdP USA was Thomas Maurice Mulry, a man so deeply devoted to the Vincentian charism that he became known as “the American Ozanam.”

Thomas Mulry personified what it means to live the Vincentian Charism to its fullest. Not only did he lead our Society with profound conviction, but he also became a founder and vice president of the National Conference of Catholic Charities, helped establish the Fordham School of Social Service, and served as a trusted advisor to President Theodore Roosevelt on matters affecting children and families. He understood that a single person, animated by Gospel values and connected to a community of faithful servants, could help reshape an entire nation’s approach to poverty and care. Though he passed away just a year after unifying our national councils, his legacy endures in everything we do.

The Essence of Our Mission Then and Now

Throughout our 180 years of service in America, one principle has remained constant: we create relationships, not transactions. This is what makes the Society of St. Vincent de Paul fundamentally different from many charitable organizations. We don’t simply hand out aid – we sit in someone’s home, listen to their story, offer our presence, and walk with them toward stability and hope.

The Personal Encounter has been the beating heart of our mission since those first meetings at the ‘Old Cathedral.’  Two Vincentians visit a person or family in need, they develop genuine friendship, they listen, maybe they pray together, and then they offer emergency financial assistance with rent, utilities, food, clothing, and whatever else will help prevent a crisis from becoming a catastrophe. This simple practice, rooted in the Gospel, has remained remarkably consistent for 180 years because it works. It transforms both the giver and the receiver. We often refer to the practice as the ‘Home Visit’ based on the early practices of our foundation. But the reality is that the term ‘home visit’ is too limiting to describe the beauty of our work. We engage in human-to-human, Christ-centered personal encounters in many ways and places, not just in someone’s home.

Our Work Today: Serving Over 5 million Neighbors with Dignity

At the Society today, we can see the same spirit animating us that moved Frédéric Ozanam to action in 1833, and those brave founders to build their first Conference in St. Louis in 1845. The scale of our service has grown exponentially, but the mission remains beautifully unchanged.

In the 2023-2024 fiscal year alone, our network of nearly 81,000 Vincentian volunteers:

– Served over 5.2 million people across rural, suburban, and urban communities

– Made nearly 2 million visits to neighbors in need

– Provided services valued at $2.2 billion

– Contributed an estimated $416 million in volunteer hours

But behind every one of these numbers is a human story. The family that avoided eviction because a Vincentian sat with them and helped secure rental assistance. The senior citizen who can now afford her medications because of our charitable pharmacies. The person that had a place to sleep on a cold night because we operated a shelter. The young person who found steady employment through our workforce development programs.

The Many Ways We Serve

Our work has expanded and evolved to meet the changing needs of our communities. We operate thrift stores across the nation. They do double duty: providing affordable and free clothing and household goods while generating funding for our local Conferences to use in their communities. The profits from these stores provide the lifeblood of many of our Conferences and Councils.

Our Food Pantries are a lifeline in neighborhoods impacted by poverty. Thousands of families who are plagued by food insecurity and might not be able to put food on the table depend on the fresh and non-perishable goods we distribute. But we’ve gone further. We operate meal programs and community dining halls that not only nourish bodies but build dignity and connection.

Our ever-accelerating efforts in homelessness prevention meets families on the edge of disaster and provides the financial help and support they need to stay housed. For those experiencing homelessness, our rapid re-housing, transitional, and supportive housing programs work to get people off the streets and into stable housing. Innovative programs partner with landlords, navigate systems, and provide the support services that make permanent housing possible.

Our charitable pharmacies in places like Baton Rouge, Madison, Atlanta, Dallas, Cincinnati, and several other communities are a powerful testimony to our commitment to wholeness. Patients no longer must choose between buying groceries and taking their life-saving medications.

We’ve launched programs like Back2Work that provides customized training, continuing education, and connections to meaningful employment for people impacted by incarceration, poverty, and homelessness. We operate youth and young adult conferences nationwide, recognizing that young people are not just the future of our Society but are already the present, already serving with enthusiasm and idealism.

Our Disaster Services Corporation mobilizes when tragedy strikes, providing long-term recovery support that extends far beyond the initial emergency. DSC has innovated with the ‘House in a Box’ program which delivers essential household items to disaster survivors within hours, sometimes within 24 hours, at no cost to families, with donated values often exceeding $3,400 per box.

This spring, we opened a National Office in Washington, D.C., to emphasize and accelerate our efforts in Public Policy and Advocacy. Going back to the days of Ozanam and the founding members of SVdP USA we recognize that to truly serve the poor, we must advocate for systemic change at the national level. Our voice is now heard in Washington, speaking up for those experiencing homelessness, those struggling with poverty, those seeking re-entry after incarceration, and all vulnerable populations.

What Makes Us Different

In a world of nonprofit organizations and charitable agencies, what makes the Society of St. Vincent de Paul unique? It is this: we believe that growth in holiness is found in service to the poor.

For us, this is not a vocation – it is a calling that shapes our spiritual lives. We do not serve the poor to feel good about ourselves or to check a box. We serve because we believe we encounter Christ in every person we meet. We serve because we have been called by our Catholic faith to live the Gospel, not just read it, and to be the answer to someone else’s prayer, to show up in their moment of greatest need and say, “You are not alone.”

This is why our members and volunteers continue to show up, year after year, decade after decade, century after century. It’s why a seventy-year-old retiree will wake up on a Saturday morning to deliver emergency assistance to a family he’s never met before. It’s why a young parent will take time away from their family to help another family find stability. It is why a businessperson will leave the office to sit in someone’s living room and simply listen.

Gratitude and Hope for What’s Ahead

As we stand here in November 2025, celebrating 180 years of faithful service, my heart overflows with gratitude. Gratitude for Frédéric Ozanam, whose youthful idealism was ignited by a challenging question and transformed the world. Gratitude for Father John Timon and Father Ambrose Heim and all the clergy who saw in the Vincentian charism something essential for the American Church. Gratitude for the countless laypeople, priests, bishops, religious sisters, and above all our dedicated volunteers, who have kept this flame burning bright.

I’m grateful for Thomas Mulry, who showed us that one person’s commitment to the Vincentian mission can influence an entire nation. I’m grateful for all the Vincentians who have come before us, who built our thrift stores and food pantries and shelters, who sat in countless living rooms and changed lives through relationship and presence.

And I am profoundly grateful for you, the 81,000 people who make up our Society today. You are the living embodiment of Vincentianism. Whether you’re folding clothes in one of our thrift stores, distributing food at a pantry, visiting a family in their home, serving on a board, or supporting us financially, you are the heart and hands of the Society. You are how Christ’s love reaches the most vulnerable in our communities.

What’s Ahead – Looking Forward with Eyes of Faith

As we celebrate this milestone, we also look to the future with eyes full of hope and excitement. The needs of our communities are great; poverty hasn’t disappeared, homelessness continues to grow, hunger persists, and so many people are just one crisis away from disaster. But we are not discouraged. We know that with faith, with community, with determination, and with the grace of God, transformation is possible.

We are in an excellent position to accelerate and innovate in how we serve. Over the next years, we will be making significant investments from our reserves and resources (prudently and strategically) to continue to meet people where they are; in rural communities where poverty is often invisible, in urban neighborhoods where visible homelessness breaks our hearts, in suburban communities where struggles hide behind closed doors. But we cannot just throw money and aid at these problems and hope they go away; they won’t. We must continue to invest and build capacity, systems, programs, and relationships that will give us the ability to leverage our resources to do more to address the systemic and root cause issues, not just distribute aid. We must, and we will, help our Conferences and Councils grow. Grow in financial resources, membership, and spirituality. Not just by providing funding and National Office staff support, but by training and mentoring, and helping create the systems needed to thrive. And we will continue and grow our work of advocating for policies and systemic changes while serving immediate needs. We will continue to form young people in the Vincentian spirit so that this charism doesn’t fade but deepens with each generation.

Most importantly, we will continue to remember that every person we serve is precious, beloved, and made in the image of God. Every single person deserves dignity. Every single person deserves to be seen and heard. Every single person deserves a friend who will walk with them toward hope.

A Final Word

On this 180th anniversary of the Society’s founding in America, I invite you into deeper communion with our Vincentian mission. If you are not yet an active conference member, consider joining us. If you are already a Vincentian, thank you and accept the challenge to deepen your commitment, to bring a friend, to mentor a young person in this vocation we love.

Let us commit to making sure that 180 years from now, in the year 2205, there are still Vincentians walking through neighborhoods (or maybe they’ll be flying around on personal hovercraft by then), sitting in living rooms, visiting the poor, offering friendship and assistance, and showing the world what it looks like when people take seriously the Gospel mandate to love their neighbor as themselves.

The work of charity will never be finished in this world. But neither will the grace of God. And as long as there are people experiencing poverty and injustice, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul will be there, formed by 180 years of tradition, animated by the love of Christ, and committed to walking with our neighbors toward dignity and hope.

Thank you for being part of this remarkable story. Thank you for caring. Thank you for serving. Thank you for all you do.

Peace and God’s blessings,

John

The government shutdown is increasingly devastating with every passing day, leaving most federal workers without pay and causing uncertainty and delays in federal programs that serve the poor.  Our most economically vulnerable brothers and sisters should not be forced to go without basic needs as a result of a partisan impasse, and it is time for both Republicans and Democrats in Congress to come together to ensure that the most marginalized among us will not abruptly lose critical benefits.

The Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA, therefore, urges the U.S. Department of Agriculture to immediately use every available mechanism, including the utilization of contingency reserves, in order for the 42 million people who benefit from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to be able to buy food next month. It would be simply intolerable for people to unnecessarily go hungry as the shutdown heads into its second month.

As one of the largest nonpartisan, lay Catholic charitable organizations in the U.S. with more than 80,000 volunteers, it is not our role to take sides in a political fight. But it is our role and our duty to speak on behalf of the friends and neighbors we serve. Let’s end the partisan politics and find a solution for the common good that will sustain needed programs and the people they serve.

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The first Apostolic Exhortation from Pope Leo XIV entitled Dilexi Te (“I Have Loved You”) is greeted with the utmost joy and appreciation by our 81,000 members of The Society of St. Vincent de Paul USA (SVdPUSA).

The vision outlined by the Holy Father to serve the poor with love and compassion is not only the call of the Gospel, it has been our mission as Vincentians each day in the U.S. and 155 countries since our founding in 1833 in Paris, France.

More than a century ago, Leo XIII began a new tradition in Catholic Social Doctrine, connecting the church’s timeless teaching directly to contemporary circumstances and realities, and reminding the world that although the face of poverty may change, our duty to the poor does not.

More recently, Pope Francis emphatically reminded us that the Church cannot be separated from the poor. The mission of the Church, he said, must always be to embrace the most vulnerable with Christ’s love by meeting their individual material needs, while diligently working to improve societal and governmental systems and structures to lessen the gap between rich and poor.

Pope Leo XIV now continues this tradition with a perceptive and bold exhortation that inspires us to see the face of Christ in each person we encounter. Pope Leo is encouraging and even demanding that each of us take action in our own neighborhoods and communities to improve the lives of our brothers and sisters as we care for them as our neighbor.

At The Society of St. Vincent de Paul, we do this every day through our one-on-one encounters, our shelters and food banks, our work with those leaving prison, our advocacy efforts in Washington, D.C. and state capitals, and so many other programs.

It is in these ways that Vincentians live the Beatitudes and will continue to answer the call of the Holy Father in his first Apostolic Exhortation, Dilexi Te.  

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