← Called (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Called (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Called to Be Courageous w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz and Dr. Carolyn Woo
01:12:41
What does it mean to trust God when the decision feels risky? In this episode of Called, Fr. Mike Schmitz sits down with Dr. Carolyn Woo to talk about courage, discernment, and leaving security to follow God’s call. Carolyn shares how she walked away from tenure and a successful academic career to say yes to a mission that would eventually lead her to serve the global Church through Catholic Relief Services. Together they discuss fear, trust, and the question many of us eventually face: What is enough? If you’ve ever struggled with a big life decision or wondered how to know what God is asking of you, this conversation is for you. To receive updates on the podcast text CALLED to 33777. If you have a question or a story of someone living out their calling to serve others, email info@thecatholicinitiative.org.
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- [00:00]
A
Coming up in today's episode of Called what is Enough?
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B
And I don't need more just to have more, but I just need more to feel safer.
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A
Feel safe? Yeah.
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B
Yes. Right. I mean, so that was a big question. And I do not know any other Chinese academic who gave up tenure and just. It's just not done. They don't do that. So I had to address that and say, you have enough. You have enough. You have enough. I dealt with my fear. Then my joy came, and it was an incredible joy.
- [00:39]
A
Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and welcome to Called, a podcast from the Catholic Initiative produced in partnership with Ascension. As a Catholic Initiative board member, I'm proud of what we're doing in renewing the church by serving those most in need, just as we're taught in Matthew chapter 25. Through the Restoration of parishes and schools, we're strengthening communities, and we're bearing witness to a faith that is lived and not merely believed. Today's episode is titled Called To Be Courageous, and it's a conversation about what it means to say yes to God not when the path is clear, but when it's uncertain. Not when the path is easy, but when it's demanding and also deeply consequential. So Scripture reminds us, in the book of Joshua 1:9, the Lord God says, have I not commanded you be strong and courageous? Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Those words were spoken to Joshua at a moment of absolute, enormous responsibility, when he was being asked to lead God's people forward without knowing exactly how the journey would unfold. And that same kind of courage, rooted not in confidence but in trust in the Lord, has shaped the life and vocation of our guest today. Today we're honored to be joined by Carolyn Wu. She's the former president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, longtime academic leader and a woman whose life has been marked by courageous obedience, responding to God's call again and again in service to the poor, the vulner, and the global church. Carolyn, welcome to the Called podcast.
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B
Thank you. Good to be with you.
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A
Yeah, it's so good. Also, thank you so much for taking the time today to set up here in Frigid South Bend. Here we are in Frigid Duluth, Minnesota. Could I, just. For the sake of our listeners who don't know as much about your work, could you just introduce yourself briefly so that we kind of have a good sense before we launch into our conversation?
- [02:32]
B
All right. I'm Carolyn Wu. I Was born and raised in Hong Kong post war. I was educated by the American Missionary sisters, the Mary no Sisters. I came to the US for education. Eventually I became a strategy professor, which is a very strange thing to become. I was an academic. Then I became an administrator at Notre Dame, dean of the business school and. And then I worked at Catholic Relief Services as a CEO. And now I'm retired.
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A
Yeah. Wow. So you've been kind of all over the place, sort of. But also been in academia for a long time.
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B
Yes, I was in academia and academic administration until I went to crs.
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A
Wow. So you have a book, a book called Working for a Better World. And it discusses some of your formative years as a daughter of refugees and that those Maryknoll missionaries in the influence of those faith filled educators. Could you just share a little bit about how those early experiences, whether life in Hong Kong or those experiences of those Maryknoll missionaries who were guided by their faith, how those shaped your understanding of. Of who God is and your work.
- [03:55]
B
So I would go on two dimensions. One is growing up among women. My mother, my aunt, I had a nanny and so on. These were Chinese women who had very little. They have no say in the running of a family. Their husbands usually allocate very little resources to them. Their education was disrupted by the war. But I saw in them women who were extremely resources. And most important, Mike, is that whatever issues and needs came out for family, they would resolve it, even though they didn't have what it needed first. And so on, one way or the other, they would manage to find what is needed. If they need rice, they need rice. If they need medicine, they need medicine. So it's because women step up and solve those problems. And so that's one thing I learned about resilience. But more importantly, the driver of resilience is commitment. They had to solve those problems because they love their families. The second track of this is of course, the Mariners sisters. And what an incredible gift to be educated by the Mariner sisters. They were of course, American sisters, headquartered in Ossining, New York. They were the first Catholic women ordered from the USA to go overseas. And so they went to China. They were imprisoned. They actually were sort of homebound for a while. They went to Hong Kong and they started out a lot of schools. So we had 12 years with the Mariana sisters. So at first they were just odd. You know, they had these habits and when we were young it was like, oh, you know, do they have hair?
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A
Do they have legs hair?
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B
Do they go swimming? Because Hong Kong is on a beach. You. So those were the little things, but, you know. And they couldn't speak Chinese very well. So when we were young, we had to learn English. And that's how I learned English. It's either, you know, being poorly taught in very bad Cantonese, or we learn English. So we did that. And then, of course, as we grew, particularly into middle school, we had a sense of these people make a lot of sacrifice. And of course, we thought of America as, you know, the golden opportunity. And we say, why would you leave America to come to Hong Kong? Why would you leave everything that was more advanced to come and teach us? And I remember the stories. They said, well, we loved you before we even saw you. And we just saw such potential in each of you that we teach. And you have to remember, with these Chinese girls with bangs and pigtails, we didn't look like a picture of future women leaders or whatever. We were just, you know, these Chinese girls from these families. But they would say, we love you before we even met you. We know you have so much potential. We want to develop that potential. So along the way, they taught us how to have a voice, which is not what Chinese women are supposed to have. We are not supposed to have chalk female voice. We just are supposed to agree. And then with voice, they taught us about action, social justice. So you have to imagine in Hong Kong, which is a highly capitalistic society where business success means everything, there is this whole branch of social justice where they help us become sensitive to people who are not like us. To the boat people, to. To why people are driven out of their home. We were part of the Legion of Mary. We have our activities, and they included, at first, sort of going to where the boat people were. There were a lot of boat people in the harbor. And the sisters have a mobile clinic, for example, and they would, like, clean the woods. They would put penicillin on people's wound. And I remember one of the jobs that I had was to clean people's hands and feet because they were very dirty. People were living on boat, and there were no bathroom. And so every Saturday they would dock. And in order to clean the wounds and so on, you have, first of all to clean the hands and feet. And one of my earliest job was that I had to clean the feet of some of these people. And you sit up on the stool, and they sit up on a lower stool, and then you bend over to clean. I just thought, oh, my Lord, you know, I don't know if I'm cut up for this. Because it's very intimate, you know, Jesus washed people's feet, you know. So I remember those early memories. My other job, I have several jobs. Other job was I was to teach English. So I was probably about 10th grade or 11th grade. And after school, I would go into the factory district of Hong Kong and there would be these girls at 4 o', clock, they would have finished their factory jobs and they would come to learn conversational English, teach them.
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A
And you were teaching?
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B
I was teaching. I was the teacher. And I could teach them conversational English from a book. And I remember my father saying, I don't like that. I don't like you going to that territory. And he said, some of these young women were preparing themselves to be bar workers, women who would work in the bars, because that was a big bar district. And he said, I don't think you should go do that. And I remember talking to my father and said, well, I don't know if they're going to the bar. They just want to learn English. Like, how are you? And, you know, how do you say, I'm most grateful? And how do you say thank you? And I said, that's all we do. I don't know what else they do, and I don't think I care. So that was the beginning of my training. So you have to remember, like, 10th grade and then of course, our 11th and 12th grades. We are old enough to sort of begin to understand why the power of their God. And I'm Catholic, I was baptized, but 95% of my classmates were not Catholic. So they said, this is what faith looks like. You know, faith which sent these people overseas to do this work to educate these Chinese girls. And, you know, that's. That's real commitment. And we learn from example, right? We don't know what commitment is until you see it. I see it in the Chinese women. I see it in these American sisters. And so there was no. No, they always found a way to do things. For example, when we needed to raise money, at one point they gave up public transportation so that the bus money, the ferry money, the taxi money became the seed money for a grant. And then they started things such as hospitals and center for the deaf and services for the elderly. And we were part of that. And I think that that is the whole idea of watching faith in action. And most of all, they were very joyful. So the whole message that faith requires love, that faith really sends people to do unusual things. And you could be resourceful when you're doing this. Faith is about action and Faith is joyful. So my math teacher, Sister Mary Lou Teufel, she would say, I'm just a Mary Lou Teufeld, and it rhymes with joyful. So that was my beginning.
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A
Yeah. That's incredible. So quick, quick, just clarification, just for my own curiosity, when, how old were you when you were going to the, the docks to care for the boat people with their hands and feet?
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B
I would say about 10th grade.
- [12:42]
A
Okay, so sophomore, that maybe like 15, 16 years old.
- [12:46]
B
Yes. So we would be the Legion of Mary's mission. You know, we have different activities and, you know, one of those activities was to ride with the sisters. They have a mobile clinic. I think they have nurses. I don't know whether they have doctors. And they administered basic care. Yeah, but basic care. Before you could put ointment, you know, on the cut in the bottom of the foot, you have to clean it, wash it.
- [13:12]
A
Yeah. And I can imagine, I can't imagine. You know, sometimes we imagine here, Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. It's like, well, there's some dust there, you know, as opposed to what you are cleaning, which would be. No, you're living.
- [13:24]
B
You know, it's a very intimate activity. You have to hover close to the foot. You. You have to hover as close as your arm is long, which is not very long. You see what I mean? That's, that's the distance of what you would do. But it's such a, you know, in some ways it's a nothing task. It's not difficult, it's not complicated. It's just very human. And of course, you have to clean the foot before you could administer medical care.
- [13:54]
A
Well, going back to how you were saying, how the women in your life, recognizing the resilience, and the women in your life recognizing how incredibly practical, you know, they were in that sense of like, no, here is how love, I mean, it's almost one of those descriptions. It seems like this is what love looks like. Like love washes your feet because if you don't get them washed, it's going to go back to the, you know, going to get infected. Love washes the hands because if you don't do this. And it's just one of those situations where it seems like so clearly throughout your life it's been, okay, this is what practical love. This is what practical faith looks like. Yeah. Love in action.
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B
And practical faith sometimes also requires innovativeness and creativity. So at crs, we work a lot with these internal savings circle because it's very expensive to get loans from bank and so we would organize groups of women from about 15 to 20 in one country. Actually, the Legion of Mary did that. And these women learn how to maybe contribute a dollar a week, but so 20 people is 22 weeks later is $40. That's quite a sum. And to learn how to rely on yourself as a group to solve problems, well, I saw my mom and my aunt and their friends did exactly the same thing without a big label around it, because they needed to pool their resources, and so they're very creative. And how women had to rely on one another, so they have to get along. They have to come up with the tuition. If somebody had to have a sick child, somebody else had to cover her chores. So there's a lot of this collaboration, but it's all done because, you know, they have a family to take care of, and they don't have access to a lot of resources. They don't have a lot of control, but they learn to sort of be creative and solve the problems. And that's why the Pope said, you know, you should listen to women because they tend to have pragmatic solutions.
- [15:57]
A
Right. So, Carolyn, when you left Hong Kong and came to the United States for education, you mentioned that there is a. One would think that, okay, now here I am in the United States, and, I mean, you have a distinguished academic career. You have, you know, opportunity where you just. You could have just said, okay, this is. I'm now working at the university. I'm taken care of. What was it in you that was like, okay, yeah, I'm serving students, but I want to serve more people. I want to serve people who are even more desperate maybe, than just people in the walls in the halls of academia. What was it in you that you're like, no, I escaped that. I escaped a life where we have to band together. Now I can actually be independent. But you still chose to serve. What was it in you that said, I'm going to do this not because I have to. I'm going to do this because I'm choosing to.
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B
So, Mike, to go a little bit backwards, when I came to the United States, I didn't have any money. My older siblings pulled together, and I had exactly one year of tuition. My father didn't want me to come over. And so in my education at Purdue University, I received a lot of help. I received financial resources in the way of scholarships at the Newman Center. People invited me to their home for Thanksgiving and Christmas because the dorms were closed, and I had no place to go. My faculty, you know, really Helped me in many ways. So I'm a product of people's help. And my home was always the church. It was in the middle of campus. And every day when I went back from the classrooms and libraries to the dorms, I would stop by at the church. I left a lot of my knees, you know, skin the pew. And I would talk to God, and I would say, today was a good day. This is what I learned. But I don't know what I would do. I wanted to get a graduate degree without knowing what a graduate degree is all about. But it's just like being a Chinese. More degrees is better. That's a degree. Go get it.
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A
More education. Let's go.
- [18:12]
B
Yes. And I said, you know, and even from after my first year to my second year, I needed a scholarship. And, you know, I prayed and so on. So my own life, particularly the first seven years in college, was always, you know, counting on something coming through and talking to God about that. So I would say, as my career progressed, it was a good career. I became a strategy professor. This is in the early 80s. Nobody talks about strategy. I shouldn't have gone into that field. It's not the best field for a young person who has never seen organizations, but never mind. It became my field, and I loved it. And Now I have 40 some years. I went from, you know, being a professor to being an academic administrator. I was an associate provost at Purdue. Then I became the dean of the business school at Notre Dame. I was also asked to go on the board of crs. That's how I got to know it. It was the first year when the bishops opened up the board to lay people, because before then, CRS belongs to the US Bishops, and before then, only bishops were board members. But they decided to open up the board to lay people. So I was the first class invited to be a board member of CRS and got to know its work. By the time I was done, I finished all six years of my tenure. They were looking for a new CEO, and I was on the search committee. I could not make the first meeting. And then afterwards, the chair, Bishop George Thomas, called me and said, carolyn, we don't want you to come to the meeting. We thought you would be a good candidate,
- [20:06]
A
nominated you.
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B
No, I was being snide because, you know, I don't know anything about international development. Just being a board member is more like being a grandparent. You know, whenever you visit, the kids will sing and dance. They are on their best behavior. They look great, you know, and you hear how well they're doing, which doesn't constitute as real expertise in international development. So I really know nothing about international development. And you have to make decisions fairly quickly and precisely in that line of work. So I thought, oh, they just wanted me to be a diversity candidate. They need a woman and not American. And, you know, because there were a lot of people retiring from the State Department who, you know, were applicants, and it was a big pool. So I said, oh, Bishop Thomas, I don't do that. Like, I don't like to be candidate for anything. That is because, you know, I am of a certain profile. So he said, carolyn, we're not asking you to be our CEO yet. We are just asking you to allow yourself to be a candidate. Can you do that? We said, well, okay. I usually don't like that because, you know, whether you admit it or not, you're emotionally involved. But I thought, oh, I could do that for serious. And I said, bishop Thomas, if they asked you to do the same, what would you do? It was a bit of a snide remark. And he said, you asked me what I would do. I would get down on my knees and pray. So here I was like, is this a joke to the bishop saying, I would get down on my knees and pray? So I said, oh, okay. So I got down on my knees and prayed. I said, you know, I could manage my ego. So what? I'll be a candidate and be rejected somewhere along the line. Not what one seek, but I could handle that for serious. So I just expected to be eliminated. Like, I wouldn't be able to tell you all the capitals of the countries in Africa. I would be able to tell you who is fighting whom on what issues. I just don't know those things. And Africa is the biggest sort of area that serious works in. I mean, I know it from board reports. So I thought, oh, it would go away. Well, it didn't go away, and it kept going. And then finally they said, there are three people and you are one of them. Now is the time to really think seriously about this. So I just couldn't resolve this. At that point. I was the dean of the Mendoza College. We have been ranked the number one business school in undergraduate business education going into a second or third year. I once said when I went to Notre Dame, to be the dean of the business school is to show what a Catholic business school is all about. What is the mission of a Catholic business school? And we're going to prove it to the big boys that it works. Well, I sort of accomplished that, and it Was sort of like a good job because everybody wants their children to come into the business school. You know, saying no is not easy, but it is not the hardest job in the world. And so I was enjoying myself, finally getting there. So the key really was to say no to Sarah, to say, I don't know anything really about international development. I don't know enough to make the type of critical decision quickly. I should just say no, and I would lose tenure. And my whole goal in life is not to succeed wildly, but is to have security. Because I came from a situation where nobody has security.
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A
Makes sense.
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B
All these refugees, they left everything. They don't have safety nets. And my father told me, we don't have Social Security. We only have children. All right? So the children provides the security for the family. And so I should have said no, but I couldn't quite say no, and I couldn't quite say yes. And I called up a wonderful priest, CSC Father Ken Molinaro, who got up every morning at 4 o' clock to pray. And I said, father Molinaro, I need spiritual direction. I know this is something that somehow would leave, and it's totally illogical. Totally. And he said, okay. The first meeting, I said, I've done a lot of analysis. I'm a highly analytical person. I said, I know my pros and cons, and I actually have decision trees that show which path is whatever. I said, no, no, no, don't show me that. And he said, if your thinking could resolve the issue, you would not be here.
- [25:28]
A
Yeah. If thinking could solve the issue.
- [25:31]
B
And he said, we are here because this is beyond thinking. So he advised me, which is the best advice I would give anyone in spiritual discernment. He said, just have a little notebook and a pen with you all the time, and it will come to you, your joys and your fears. So I didn't carry a little notepad or pencil. I just had my iPhone, you know. And he said, things will come to you. Thoughts will come to you. You don't need to think about it. It will come to you. Your joys and your fears, and just write them down. So I started having nightmares. That's how the fears came. And I seldom had nightmares. I. I could sleep through everything. And mostly the nightmares were losing tenure, which is, you know, my hope for security that could well last me into my 70s, you know, like.
- [26:27]
A
Yeah.
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B
And the second thing was that I don't know anything about international development. I would just be totally, like, irrelevant and have no knowledge. Everybody would know that I, among all of the Staff here knows the least. I would be totally embarrassed. I'm an academic, and, you know, academics are very much into expertise. It could be the most narrow slice, but you have expertise, and that's, you know, your coin of relevance. That's your currency. If you don't have expertise, you have no currency. So I would have no currency. And then I had a. You know, like, my husband might have an accident and I would not be there. And I just had a story around that time where a colleague of mine was on a business trip and her husband had a heart attack. And there was nothing she could do. She was on the phone with her son. She was in New York, they were in Texas, and her husband died. So I must tell you, that was quite a scare. Like, what would happen if I'm gone and that happens to my husband? What would I do? And then there were little things, such as, oh, these countries are very dangerous. I've never been to some of these countries. Central Africa region, or Malawi, Sudan, which was in the middle of war. I mean, it's one thing to sit on board chair and listen to the reports. It's another thing to think that I would be going there. I led a protected life. So all these things, but one by one, they got resolved. And now the one about security was a whole question, what is enough? What is enough? Of course, more is better, holding on more. But I have met all my obligations. I've supported my mother and father. You know, the kids are raised. There's no more big obligations, you know, Social Security and all the pensions and stuff like this. And it was facing the question, what is enough? And I don't need more just to have more, but I just need more to feel safer.
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A
To feel safe. Yeah.
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B
Yes. So that was a big question. And I do not know any other Chinese academic who gave up tenure and just. It's just not done. People just not. They don't do that. So I had to address that and say, you have enough. You have enough. You have enough. You know, that is the one. And so that was that. The one about fearing death, danger, and also something happening to my husband. I have to say, I said, this is in God's hand. My being there doesn't do anything, you know, like, this is all in God's hand. And I have to acknowledge at that point that death is not a punishment. I think my faith had led me along that path because we have already bought our cemetery plots at Notre Dame, which is a thing that people do not to be, but they just want to be buried there. And we have done that. So we're not people who are like totally unable to speak of death. And I think our faith requires us to deal with that. And of course, every Lent, you know, you are reminded of ash. So we had dealt with that. But this is another point of clarification to say, do you believe that death is a punishment from God? Because if it is not a punishment, it is something that we go through to see God, then it doesn't have the same fear facing that. So the whole idea of being totally incompetent in a field that I'm the one who is the least knowledgeable was to say, they didn't hire me because I know international development. They hire me because I know strategy and the process of how to go from this point to another point, and that's what's needed. Never in my resume or whatever did I boast of my international development experience. So they know what I don't know. Yeah, and everybody knows international development. And very few people were really working on strategy. And so I dealt with my fear. Then my joy came and it was an incredible joy. It was, oh, I think I'm meant to do this because I saw all of these women and even men went through the whole process of displacement. I saw not only their challenges and their lives, which I know well, I mean, they moved their place, couldn't even speak the language. It's a different government. Not only did I know of the challenges, but I knew all the successes. You know, I know how people succeed.
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A
You'd seen it. You'd seen what it worked out.
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B
Yes, I've seen what it works out. And I felt like I was the accumulation of all the lives of those women. My grandmother, whose feet were bounded. My mother, you know, who had so little say in anything. My aunt who was brilliant but had to stop school. My nanny, who became a servant and was sort of sold to another family when she was nine years old. So, Mike, I just felt like the lives of all the people who loved me and raised me came into that invitation and I went to Mary Null Mother House for a retreat. The sisters were really sort of wise. They put me next to the womb of their founder mother Mary Joseph, who died in 1955. And I was born in 1954. So I felt like we cross path on earth. So they put me in the room right next to her office and told me I have free use of it. And I started going in to read her diaries about why they are doing what they were doing, what it meant to send Sisters into China, where there was yellow fever. What it meant when the Manchurian government imprisoned. Yeah. What it meant to have joy. That in their formation it was very important to have ice cream and skits. And what it meant to really trust God. So I read all her diaries and her letters, not all of it, because they were quite extensive, but every day I would go in there, I would take a side chair against the wall, gingerly pulled out a volume and start reading. And at the end of my visit there, I went to her desk. It was a very simple wood desk with a little wood chair. And I actually sat in her chair and I rested on her desk. And I felt this energy that comes through me that says I was a product of this sister. I know what their work stood for. And I saw the fruits of that work in the formation and the education of their students. And I just made a promise that I would continue that work. I just felt it. I just felt like, because the Mariana sisters are getting older and older and you know, just like all many religious sisters congregations, you know, it will come to a fulfill end sometime. And I just felt like I inherited that mission and that charismatic and that in one way or the other, I would make this mission known and continued. So there I went. And it was such a privilege, it was such a joy to know that all the graces and kindness and love, all the things that were difficult and so on, came together in an opportunity to carry all those things forward. Sorry about this.
- [35:38]
A
No, it's wonderful. It's so powerful. I mean, even just thinking, hearing what you're saying about how here's the obstacles, some of the obstacles in your heart of I really want security, that certainty. I fear what happens with. I mean, even how you're describing, how literally how your face, faith was able to just that trust in the Lord, be able to say, okay, I have enough. Because that's. That's a huge statement to be able to have enough, then be able to say, I don't have to fear death. Death isn't the enemy because of Jesus. And then that paving that way. I love that council about saying, if you could have thought through your way through this, that would have been done. And then with the intercession of the foundress and there even just how the Lord moved your heart to say, okay, now that those obstacles are out of the way, here's my voice. I mean, I just. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but now those obstacles are out of the way, like you've resolved those. There can still Be some fear, but you're not bound by it. Now you can hear my voice of like this, that. That pull of people have loved me. I need to love others. They've cared for me, I need to care for others. It makes me almost, almost wonder. You know, we walk middle schoolers through like the virtues at one point and we have a camp and at one point there's the virtue of justice. And that justice is, you know, you give someone what they're owed or you get what's coming to you. And one of the thoughts would be, I know a missionary maybe, much like you, Carolyn, a missionary who they said, oh no, I love Jesus, but I'm a missionary not just because of love first. I'm a missionary because of justice, because here's God who gave everything for me, I have to give everything for him. In that sense of. That's simply just. And then it's also motivated by love and whatnot. But Carolyn, what I hear you say is also that sense of, here's the Lord who's clearing a path for you. And then that sense of, again, I just have been given so much. I don't want it to stop with me. I don't want it to end with me. Which is remarkable.
- [37:43]
B
Well, in the sense that I may not have university level knowledge about what international development is, but I grew up in that culture. I grew up, you know, in those processes. And I may not know the people, but I felt like I knew the people, I knew the beneficiaries, I grew up among them. And I also have to say, when I was a sophomore, I went to a retreat. The retreat master was Daniel Berrigan of the Chicago 7. Dan Berrigan. Father Berrigan. And the line that he left, I was a sophomore. And he said, when you are afraid to take risk, when you are sophomore, which means you have nothing to lose. When you're afraid to take risks, when you have nothing to lose, when will you take risk? Right. Isn't that so powerful?
- [38:40]
A
That is so powerful.
- [38:41]
B
Yeah. So I remember that I said, you know, you're not risking much, you know, get off it, you know. So those were the reasons. And it was wonderful privilege.
- [38:56]
A
Well, you had mentioned too, that. That you had. So that the. What they were looking for wasn't someone who was an expert in international policy or. But that sense of strategy and that the reality that here's crs. Which that must. I'm guessing, I don't know the history in that sense, but must have needed some. Must have needed what you had to give. And you've actually you've called CRS a well oiled machine when it comes to operation operations. Was that a situation where you're like, okay, I'm coming into this, I'm going to bring what I know. I don't have to bring what someone else knows because I don't know what they know. I'm going to bring strategy to make CRS a well oiled machine. Was that part of your mission when you got there?
- [39:38]
B
Yeah. So CRS is a very effective, very, very beneficiary oriented organization who can get things done and have very low overhead and they have credibility everywhere. But what happened was that there was PEPFAR which is a very big hi HIV AIDS program that was started by President Bush. Crs, who has never done any of that work, was one of the largest recipient in collaboration with the University of Maryland which has the academic department. We received a lot of grant and by then we were pushing $1 billion in revenue. But the PEPFAR program was meant to be transferred to our local partners and so our funding would keep going down. And so when I was being recruited and so on, the funding was dropping significantly. And this is the work of strategy. The work of strategy is to know that environment change and so you have to reassess what is of value to this environment and how do you get it done. In addition, CRS was working in many different countries, sometimes over 120 countries. It has, you know, many different country managers. Sometimes the manager will manage one or two or three countries, but they were very independent. They tried to acquire resource locally and did programming locally. But what happened was there was the emergence of very large foundation, you know, the Ford foundation, the Gates foundation, whatever foundation. And they don't want small little programs. They want programs that we say if we cut across 14 countries in the whole area of pick a crop, pick a disease, we want programming that cuts across so many different countries and not only take care of the problem immediately but but demonstrate the long term solution to these problems. And so it requires a very different way of working. It requires very different skills. It's not individual entrepreneurial country managers doing each of their own thing. It requires a different organization structure of how we work together. It requires different way of monitoring our work. It requires different way of tracking our beneficiaries which would go from a million 400,000 to 26 million. So that's very different. And also technology was coming in. A lot of mobile technology was coming in. And if you work as individuals, you cannot incorporate technology in a major way. But it was A very important tool in this. You could diagnose people using the iPhone with attachments. You can send those X rays to a charitable hospital in Italy run by the sisters. You know, it just changed the whole way of how things need to be done. So coming from a business school was the right thing. And it was good that I know the least among the people because I have to listen, I only ask questions. And it allows them to be sort of playing a very important role knowing that the CEO, you know, doesn't know. I mean, so and I went in. The first thing I said, Mike, was I'm only here for five years. I don't. I think overstaying is a big problem in a lot of organizations and crs. By then people didn't leave. It was the promotive promote promotion from internal sort of culture and people, you know, some of them have worked there 30, 40 years continually to grow and so on and increase the opportunity. So I would say I'm only here for five years, I need to go home. I lived away from my husband, which was very hard because I was always traveling. And I said these five years don't do anything because of me or what I said because I'll be gone. And in five years, if we feel like our mission is really vibrant and we use these five years well and really sort of earned the right to do our mission, then we are in good, good place. Otherwise what would happen is that, I mean, if I'm wrong, just tell me. But you know, there is a certain degree of accountability that we need to go for. And I said my job is that while you are heads down, working very hard, I mean people are working very hard. Heads down. Somebody has to be heads up. I don't want us to work into a dead end, which is the lack of strategy would do that to you, is that you could work very hard towards a dead end. Often. Oh, people don't need this anymore. Oh, you know, and I said my job working with all of you is that we are heads up and we are working towards the capacity and ability to meet more people, to serve more people. I mean they really took this on. They doubled the number of people they were going to serve. We went from over 100 million now after I left, there are over 200 million people.
- [45:13]
A
Really?
- [45:13]
B
Yes. That's the impact of CRS.
- [45:17]
A
Well, and that's also did you with that kind of heads up mentality because you've talked about in your book, you talked about how that no single entity, no single sector can solve global poverty on Its own, that partnerships are important. And I think this is interesting because sometimes you have NGOs, businesses, what that. But you've made the point that the church partnering isn't just helpful, but the church needs to be in on this. The church needs to partner with NGOs, the church needs to partner with businesses. Why is that? Why would you say that the church needs be partnering with these other organizations?
- [45:58]
B
Okay, I'm going to answer it on two levels. One is, why is the church necessary? And the second one is why does this church need to collaborate with others? So why is the church necessary? So first of all, it's the gospel. I mean, that's what the gospel said you have to do. The real pragmatic reason is that the church is everywhere in the world. You know, it's in Syria, it's everywhere. You know, in places where it's not even Catholic. I mean, where Catholics are, you know, not particularly welcome, maybe one or two countries. But the global church is truly global, Mike. It is everywhere. And it is a very well established structure. You know, we are highly hierarchical organization. Right. The Catholic Church. But that means that you could walk into every diocese and you know what a diocese is and you know who is in charge and you know what happens under the diocese. You know, the parishes, each one of them has a Catholic Charities equivalent they call Caritas. They have parishes and parishes and program. So just geographically, you know, other NGOs, when they go into a country, they have to establish operations, right? Yeah. Sometimes you have to start offices, sometimes they have to start building, you know, working relationship and collaboration and partnerships and so on. For the Catholic Church, the global Catholic Church is right there. It's that whole structure. It doesn't go away when CRS has to go away. You know, it's still there. And so anytime where there's a need, a disaster and so on, the implementation arm is right there. And while we're sufficiently different, I mean, we're a global church. But there's a lot of things which is the same, right? Our understanding of the gospel, our value, our sense of Matthew 25, you know, so there is enough of, you know, just sitting at a standing at a grave site. One time in India after the tsunami, you know, when they were burying people and we were all singing the Spirit is a Moving, which I learned in high school in Hong Kong, and it's the same hymn being sung by the, you know, Indian fishermen. There is just when we all enter into prayer, the Our Father, right? I mean, it's like, okay, we know this is what we believe, you know, the creed. So it's amazing what the global Catholic Church really is about. So because of our commitment to the gospel and because of our structure, we have to really be. That's why too, the Catholic Church is very well respected as crs. We do not advertise. We only, you know, maybe, you know, during Lent or whatever, we send out our brochures, but we don't go on the, you wouldn't see us on the billboard, you know, on television doing that because it's the ecosystem of the church and how we talk about ourselves is very important. And we also a lot of times build the capacity of the local church. So our funding actually goes to the church. We work with them to design the programs and so on. And there's a whole story about how do you really work with your partners. So that's the first level. Why does the church need to be involved both in terms of our commitment to what Jesus asked us to do and secondly, in terms of the structure that took 2,000 years, but therefore is very real. That's number one. Why do we need to collaborate with others? So, for example, I have come to learn that poverty is not a difficult problem to deal with. You could reverse poverty, but in order to reverse poverty, you need to have economic activities, just a small things. If you don't have livelihood,
- [50:09]
A
nothing happens.
- [50:11]
B
Just a small thing. Whether it is agriculture or small domestic industry or whatever you need, you need economic development. Economic development requires capital. It requires entry into market. And so if you stop right where the market and you could not take your people into the marketplace. So it's funny, the CRS staff do not like business as you could imagine. And many of them came in through the 70s and 80s and business is evil. So on is so funny. So they said, you know, Carolyn, like, let, let us educate her. Business is evil.
- [50:55]
A
Like I just, I just ran a business school.
- [50:58]
B
Yeah, well, but you know, we talk openly. But Pope Benedict also has just written Deus Caritas Est, where he said, you know, it's not, it's not economic activity which is evil. It's really, you know, whether there is the ethical energy behind these businesses. So I asked my staff, have you run across NGOs which didn't do their jobs and sort of like cheated us a little bit and that sort of thing? They said, yes, well I said it's no different than business because if you really want a full blown solution, you don't just leave your communities, you know, where, you know, they got educated, they have literacy, but Then now it's time to start the business. You say, oh, sorry, goodbye, I can help you there. So, you know, in order to really take people to what they need, it goes beyond our expertise. That's just one reason. And you know, working with different NGOs, people specialize in different things. In emergency response, there's some people who specialize in water, some people in blood transfusion, some people in, you know, other types of supplies and, and so on. That's why if you stand, if you have the perspective of the people you're helping, they wouldn't say, okay, the Catholic Church could only take us this far. They could provide prayer blanket and they could provide a credit card, you know, that we could buy things and they could teach us crafts. But that's where it stops. So a lot of things is really, if you want to go the full way with your people, you have to cross sector, there's no question about that. And you have to collaborate with the government because they're in charge of many things such as education and health care and tax and right and roads. So, you know, it all comes together. Yes, a lot of things. I want to tell you a little story. When I left, we had a very big development grant and it was about like $50 million. We took 25 million of it and put it aside. And then the 25 million that we had, we worked with 200 communities in an area which is very poor, a lot of health issues, is a place where gangs would come and recruit young people because they didn't have a lot of opportunities where they were. We work with 200 communities, we engaged them in understanding how to develop economic livelihood. Each community is different in terms of what they grow. And also there's post production food. You could grind, you know, papaya up into, you know, powder and you could make muffins and you could make drinks and stuff like this. So, you know, we work with these communities and train them up into how they could develop a plan for economic development. We then took the other $25 million and started giving startup grants, you know, because they need capital to develop. So this is a five year project. So for the ones which are moving the fastest in year two, they are beginning to have a business. So some of those would fail and some of those would succeed. So when they succeed, they started having a track record. They could demonstrate whether it's a viable concept or not. And after five years, within that five years, CRS was responsible for developing a private fund of another $25 million that we would engage the Local banks, the local business people in their country to invest in this fund because now they could see businesses that have track records. So why, why collaborate? Well, that's why.
- [55:04]
A
That's incredible. Well, that's, that's the thing is like, so there you can do so much more. And like you, and, and so you mentioned, why is the church needed for the Gospel? Also because the church is everywhere, but also we need that collaboration because, yeah, we're not in all these different areas of life. I have this kind of like, if you go to mall, think like, so the Catholic Initiative, one of the motivations behind this is an extension of the Pulte Family foundation, which wants to be a bridge builder, but bridge between, like, you know, the stuff that you've done, which is, wow, this is a global scale. And like I would say us ordinary people, maybe everyone's ordinary, I'm not sure. But like a local parish, like, how would you say the Catholic Initiative wants this to happen? Where local parishes and Catholic institutions, whether it be CRS or other things, how do we move beyond just those isolated charity efforts and really become partners in change?
- [56:08]
B
I've also worked a lot with different initiatives and so on and so forth, parishes and so on. I'm going to say two things. One is that in your work, in the work of the Catholic Initiative on parishes and Catholic education and Catholic community, I think first and foremost we really have to work hard on what is a community. Yeah, how are we community internally and how are we community to. I hate to use the word outside because in the Gospel is that the boundaries of we and others have to. We have to keep on expanding that boundary so that the sense of other, maybe pragmatically we need a sense of other, but in terms of the way, the ways of the heart, there is no other. I think that the Catholic Catholic Church has a lot to learn about. How do we, how are we community to each other within the community? I don't think we do a very good job in managing that. And then the next one is what is this community about in the way of doing God's work, which is the whole external thing. So, Mike, I don't think we have challenged ourselves enough. Look, I would one time on the board of NCEA National Catholic Education. So I think Catholic education, I can probably have a sense of what makes Catholic education thrive or fail to thrive and so on. Money is an issue, but you know, in strategy work, at least in my work, I always say there are three things, the people, idea and money. And I always ask my Student, which is the most important thing. And it's always about people. When people get together. The second thing is ideas. And ideas will draw money. But if people, you know, so the key is, how do you cultivate this sense that we are community, we are the body of Christ, and what does that call us to be? How are we to be with each other? That's number one. That is the number one challenge. If you don't take on that challenge and you do other things, it will be a little bit better than what we have, but not much better.
- [58:38]
A
Yeah, if we're talking strategy, like there's a plan, we have to go, it's got to be a lot better.
- [58:42]
B
We have to sort of like lead with heart and people and whatever it is a parish and so on, so forth, is how are we community? I mean, when people are dealing with different issues and so on. I don't think the church address it. I don't think most regular parish address it. I don't think we have, like, set up groups of people who could attend to some parishes too. But not all parishes do the shut in, the grieving, the people who are so very lonely and so and so forth. How do we reach out? But number one is, you know, really sort of challenge ourselves to be concrete and committed to what makes us a community, what makes us the body of Christ. The second thing is that I do believe the Catholic canon law and so on, so forth, encourages endorses, parish, and I'm sorry to say, parish priests as a unit unto its own. This is the unit unto its own and it does its work. There is not enough, I think, theological underpinning. Therefore, what should this unit be in relationship to others? There's just none, zero. So I run into a lot of, you know, parishes and high schools and so on, which I think it's competitively engaged. It likes all the credit. If you have resources, you want more resources. At crs, we became very careful. Two things. One is that when proposals are written and we have a lot of credibility when we put our name on proposal, it goes along the way. But when there are other caritas in other countries which are ready, sometimes we ask them to be the lead and we be their support, you know, technical support by crs. But the proposal lead is by a smaller, you know, and international caritas. We. We don't do that. We are so competitive and we see what is mine as mine. There's another thing we did at CRS is that we created a lot of courses for training of our partners. So everything we learned how to do, you know, a project management, human resource management template for project and that sort of thing. We actually created. We got a grant to develop this in five different languages, four buckets of content for it to be open to all of our partners, including those who no longer work with us. I mean, so just to broaden this. So I would say the second thing comes back to sort of like a very unitary sense of parish as a unit unto itself. You know, with that whole sense, this is mine, this is mine, this is mine. I think that. I think we need to have a broader thinking of again, you know, how do we become more gracious, more generous? How do we act as sometimes a big brother to little sisters and little brothers to bring them along? How do we help other parishes succeed? Not just this parish, but other parishes. But I think right now there are too many barriers. You know, please go away. This is my parish and I don't have time to deal with you. I am often sort of amazed in terms of. Within any diocese wide, Catholic education, Catholic health care, Catholic social service, Catholic parishes do not come together. Why is it that there is no sort of, you know, ongoing sort of working together to make that stronger? Why is it. I mean, it doesn't make sense to me. Occasionally there's an event, a Catholic hospital, they donate to the softball team of the Catholic school or whatever. But the idea of, you know, Catholic school, social service, health care and parishes should be a family. And I challenge you to show me one such family.
- [63:35]
A
Right. Well, you know, so. So, Carolyn, this is so grateful. I'm so grateful because you're, You're. It's clear that your strategy, like your, Your vision, like you mentioned, people have their noses down. They're like hunkering down. And some people. Yet you, you and your team have to have keep your heads up to be able to see, like, where are we going? And also, what are those gaps? And I just. It's so clear that you have that. That gift, that skill. Maybe, you know, just over. Over years of honing this, of being able to see, like, okay, I can see the. I can see ahead. I can see where we need to be going. And this, then that. Even naming that is so, I think so good. If I could ask you one last question just in. Because you have, again, you have that gift of vision. You have that gift of being able to kind of see what's needed. If you were talking to someone, just your average, ordinary. Here we are. Go to whatever parish. And they were to say, carolyn, wow, you've Done so much and you have vision. What's my next best step? What would you say is like, okay, this is what, out of all the things that need to be done in the world, here's their next best step?
- [64:45]
B
Every next best step comes with listening. If you go and ask the people you're serving, what is it that you need that we're not doing? What is your experience of church when you come? I think every next best step comes with really listening to the people you're supposed to serve. And that would trigger what you say, oh, wow, these are things that we need to do. I want to say two things you didn't ask me. One is that I think there was a question about a Catholic ministry and how in some ways you didn't ask it. That way is different than nonprofits. I think a Catholic ministry is not only we care about people, because a lot of NGOs and so on, they care about people. There is a very strong humanitarian instinct. There's a sense of the golden Rule. There's a sense of overall compassion and its role in our society. But Christian ministry, if we work in the name of Christ, is to invite that sense of the sacred, is to channel that sense of the sacred into our work. That when we look at people, we do, it's hard. I can't do it myself either. I mean, I. I have confessions to do is to say God told us that he isn't that person. I may not be able to approach it, but I have to remember God said, I am in that person. And God also told us in John 14:12 or John 12:14, he said, after I leave, you are going to do greater work. That we are meant to channel the power of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, that we seldom remember. The channel that, oh, we always start with the prayer the Holy Spirit, and, you know, please come into our deliberations and so on, and that's the end of it. I want to say in strategy, there are two words we use all the time in every decision we make. The two words are, what could I do? And what should we do? What could we do? What should we do? Right. I mean, if you don't have faith, it starts with, what could we do? You name other things that you could do. And within that, we ask, what should we do? But with faith, you should begin with what should we do? Right.
- [67:16]
A
I mean, yeah, that sounds good. Yeah.
- [67:19]
B
And then what should we do? And you find out what could we do? And you find out the gaps between the should and the good. But if you ask the question, what could we do? Well, yeah, you know, this much. We could do this much, you know, and, and within that, what should we pick to do? But if you begin with a question of what should we do and channel the power of the Holy Spirit and be very open about what. Just because we ask the question what should we do? Doesn't mean that we're going to do all of those things. But it's a beginning point of sort of to have sort of that sense of God's power and God's eye. If you ask God what we should, what should we do, you know, it opens up, up the horizon of that. So I think that in faith based ministry, Christian ministry, we need to have a sense of that sacred, of the divine in us, in others, and that power that would take us forward. A failure is not a failure. A success is not the end. Do you see what I mean?
- [68:23]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [68:25]
B
So I think we need to recover that sense. And this is my last thing to say. I tell our CRS people and I didn't get that so much at Notre Dame, but I got it at crs. I said, whether people have a faith or don't have a faith, they say, oh God, I need tuition for my daughter. Oh God, I don't know where we're going to live. Oh God, you know, the agriculture, corn is dying. I don't know what other things to do. Oh God, you know, and I said, you know, with or without a faith and whatever faith it is, they are talking to God because they need help. And when we show up, we show up as answers to people's prayer to God. They pray to God and we showed up. I mean, what type of privilege is that?
- [69:17]
A
That is a privilege.
- [69:18]
B
The angel didn't show up, but we showed up. And we provide every right in medicine and solutions and so on. But that's what we do. That's what everyone does. Is that to remember that the work we do in God's name, we are answering people's prayers that they made to God?
- [69:39]
A
Yeah, desperate prayers. I mean in desperation, desperate prayer, but desperate.
- [69:44]
B
Yes, yes, yes. And you know, so many times I've been to hospitals and so on, I am so grateful to the staff who are kind. I cannot tell you how far it goes, but this is it. To remember the work of our faith makes us the answer, God's answer. God working in us to be answer to prayers made to God.
- [70:10]
A
Yeah, well, that's, that is Carolyn, thank you. That, that is a great way to end too because. Because that is that. That's the. That's the whole mission of this podcast. It's the mission of the Christian right is to be, in so many ways, the answer to people's prayer to the Lord and the body of Christ needs to move. Right. We need to be the hands and feet.
- [70:31]
B
Yes. And we always. We have to challenge ourselves. What does it mean for us to be the body of Christ.
- [70:36]
A
Yes.
- [70:36]
B
And it's not that our parish is more financially secure. I mean, that's great. But how are we. Who are we in this community?
- [70:47]
A
How are we the answer to people's prayer? I'm going to pray about that one. I like the what should we do? And then what could we do? Because it has to start with that.
- [70:54]
B
We always ask those two. Yeah, yeah.
- [70:57]
A
No, thank you so much. I don't want to take any more of your time, but I'm so grateful. No, no, I'm grateful for you because you've just made so much time for us, which is so incredibly generous of you. Also, your life, I mean, it really has been a gift of God's grace, your generosity. And so please just receive our thanks. Receive my thanks.
- [71:21]
B
That is all our lives. To tap back into all of those experiences that take you to have the heart and mind of what you care about. You know, it's all about life.
- [71:35]
A
Yeah.
- [71:35]
B
Thank you.
- [71:36]
A
Yeah, no, thank you. And also thanks for everyone who's listening to this to call this podcast. I mentioned it before. This podcast is made possible by the Catholic Initiative, which is, just like Carolyn, inspiring bold. Faith in action. Faith in action by Witness. Investing in vibrant but often unresourced Catholic communities throughout the restoration of Catholic parishes, iconic schools, and community institutions. If you want to learn more about their projects or discover how you can make a difference, visit TheCatholicInitiative.org that's TheCatholicInitiative.org Remember, remember, the Gospel is more than words. It's a way of life. Jesus. Carolyn mentioned this, but Jesus reminds us In Matthew chapter 25, when we serve the least of these, we serve him. So until next time, let's keep listening for God's call, and let's have the courage to answer it. God bless.