Public H ealtle and Social Welfare Wo-rk
Reverend Mariano S. Garriga, now the beloved Bishop of Corpus Christi, headed a committee organized to raise funds for Catholic charities, known as the Catholic Charity Board. In the parishes of the archdiocese and among the businessmen of San Antonio $63,000 were raised in 1928. Father M. J. Gilbert, who had been secretary, became the chairman in r929 and served in that capacity until r933. The work was continued by Father V. A. Sullivan, who was chairman until 1941. During the first five years, the committee raised more than $210,000 which were distributed where they did the most good, and although the annual collections declined in the lean years that followed, the combined total was considerable. It was in 1941, shortly after the Most Reverend Archbishop Robert E. Lucey came to San Antonio, that he called a meeting of the leaders among the clergy and the laity to discuss the need of coordinating the diverse endeavors of the many Catholic agencies to make their work in both the spiritual and temporal fields more helpful to the poor and needy. The result was the organization of the Catlwlic Welfare Bureau of the Arch- diocese of San Antonio. Its threefold purpose is the coordination and correlation of existing Catholic charitable agencies, devising plans to meet more adequately new needs, and providing financial assistance and pro- fessional casework services where needed. The Archbishop secured the services of Miss Helen Montegriffo, a trained and experienced social service worker to make a survey to determine conditions. "It is impossible to picture the conditions that have been revealed," said Miss Montegriffo after only a few months of exploration, "Hunger, nakedness, pain, dis- ease, despair, ignorance, filth and crime, these are the problems in ever increasing numbers, which the Catholic Welfare Bureau has to contend with, day in and day out." Since the early beginnings in 1914, the Catholic Welfare Bureau has expanded from year to year. In r942 two additional social workers were employed. Much duplication and unnecessary effort and strain were eliminated through scientific analysis of needs in child welfare. In 1943 Monsignor Paul J. Ehlinger, who had spent two years at the Catholic University in Washington studying administrative work in social welfare, returned and assumed the directorship of the Bureau. The next year the Bureau was admitted to financial membership in the reviwd Community Chest of San Antonio. The records of the Catholic Welfare Bureau show a constant increase in expenditure of funds to provide services and assist- ance to those who need it. In addition to its staff of a priest director, six
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