These agencies provide critical services including emergency food, shelter, direct financial assistance, counseling, and support.

Catholic Charities has responded to disasters across the country, including the attacks on September 11,[7] Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,[8] the Gulf Coast oil spill,[9] and the impact of Superstorm Sandy.

[18] In 1727, French Ursuline Sisters founded an orphanage in New Orleans, Louisiana, the first Catholic charitable institution in the area that later became the United States.

However, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, which was organized in the United States in 1845 in St. Louis, Missouri, soon spread to other cities and dioceses.

According to Jack Hansan of the Social Welfare History Project, by 1910 about half of the approximately 15 million Catholics in the United States lived in poverty.

[22] The new organization drew its inspiration from the social teachings of Pope Leo XIII, whose Rerum novarum (1891), in one scholar's words, sought to "free [the Church] from paralyzing resistance to bourgeois civilization by shifting attention from the intractable problems of church and state to the social question, where a more flexible pastoral and evangelical approach might be possible.

William J. Kerby, the first executive director of NCCC, described the problems a few years later: "The intense individualism of institutional and geographical units of the Church's life has ... led to a variety and resourcefulness that have been admirable.

But it has resulted in a mutual independence and lack of coordination that have undoubtedly interfered with progress in certain ways...."[24] Several Catholic educational institutions established social work programs in the decade after the founding of the NCCC, beginning with Loyola of Chicago (1914) and Fordham (1916).

[25] In 1917, the NCCC established the Catholic Charities Review to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and theories, and a resource for those who could not attend meetings.

Diocesan agencies began to expand their activities from dealing almost exclusively with the care of children to addressing wider issues of family welfare.

He said it would "bring the Federal Government with all its rules and regulations into every community in the United States to set up governmental programs for the care of children" and that the legislation implied "national control over family life".

[29] Pope John Paul II addressed the national conference of Catholic Charities USA in San Antonio, Texas, on September 14, 1987.

[32] Several diocesan branches of Catholic Charities participated in a lawsuit against provisions related to birth control insurance coverage, but not the national organization.

[33] Catholic Charities USA has endorsed the DREAM Act[34] and the Obama administration's deferral of action against some younger immigrants.

On March 10, O'Malley and leaders of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston announced that the agency would terminate its adoption work effective June 30, rather than continue to place children under the guardianship of gay people.

"[40][n 3] In November 2009, Archbishop Donald Wuerl wrote that he recognized that Washington, D.C., officials were intent on legalizing same-sex marriage, but asked for stronger language to protect individuals and institutions with religious objections to the policy.

According to Kendall Marlowe, spokesperson for DCFS, the matter probably had not emerged before because openly gay candidates chose agencies that did not have restrictive policies.

[44] In May 2011 Catholic Charities of Rockford announced that it would halt its foster care and adoption services "to avoid liability if state law requires them to place children with parents in civil unions — either gay or straight".