Hit at Poverty's Basic Issues, Sociologist Urges
Diocesan Press Service. May 6, 1964 [XXI-19]
What is the Church's role in combating the hard-core "culture of poverty" in the United States ?
One authoritative answer, from Dr. Richard Cloward of the Columbia University School of Social Work, is simply her traditional prophetic role; to make known, to Church people and the world at large, the inadequacies of America's social institutions, as presently organized, to face the problem, let alone to solve it.
Dr. Cloward, in his talk to the annual Christian social relations executive conference held in late April at the Episcopal Church Center, emphasized repeatedly that the vastness of the problem of poverty, not only in terms of the numbers of persons involved, but also in consideration of the depth and breadth of its hold on this segment of society, required nothing less than "a basic restructuring of American institutions concerned with social welfare" to eradicate the causes of poverty, rather than, as at present, only to "deal with the symptoms or the casualties of past social neglect."
He cited the vast indifference to the problem, at best, and at worst, the outright antagonism, caused in part by the current civil rights movement. Dr. Cloward, who is also director of research for Mobilization for Youth, Inc., called on the Church to counter a general tendency to excuse society's failure to deal with poverty by equating its problems with human inadequacies and failures, rather than to attack the root causes of the condition.
The annual conference, sponsored by the Christian Social Relations Department of the National Council, brought together CSR executives from 21 dioceses to meet with Council staff to plan common strategies for dioceses and the national Church in dealing with social welfare problems, including race relations, youth employment, housing and migrant work.
Chairman of the conference was the Rev. Canon Almon R. Pepper, Director of the CSR Department.