March 26, 2014
Carolyn Woo, Ph.D., President and CEO of Catholic Relief Services, presented “Faith. Action. Results.” at St. Mary’s University on Thursday, April 3, as part of the Lin Great Speakers Series.
Woo described each aspect of the agency’s new motto:
Faith – It’s the foundation on which CRS is built.
Action – Faith on its own is not enough – CRS must act when others are in need.
Results – The work of CRS must be effective and thorough, not a temporary fix. It should help end the cycle of poverty for a person or society. “We do not want to have to help people twice,” echoing her 2014 New Year’s message.
Woo was named one of the 500 most powerful people on the planet in a 2013 issue of Foreign Policy magazine. She was one of 33 in the category of “a force for good.” But she deflected this praise, saying that the honor reflects more on 70 years of work by Catholic Relief Services and the Church in the United States.
Woo became president of CRS in January 2012. From 1997 to 2011, she served as dean of the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business. She received B.S., M.S.I.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Purdue University and later became the institution’s Associate Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs.
Catholic Relief Services, the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States, was founded in 1943 by the Catholic bishops of the United States to serve survivors of World War II in Europe. It has become one of the world’s largest and most respected international relief and development agencies, each year reaching more than 130 million people in nearly 100 countries.
Lin Great Speaker Series lectures are free and open to the public. On-campus parking is available in Lot D near the NW 36th Street entrance to campus and Lot H, near the Culebra Road entrance to campus.