Father Dave Pivonka, TOR '89 President | Franciscan University website

On May 16, 2024, Franciscan University of Steubenville announced the establishment of a new Institute for Catholic Humanitarian Service (ICHS). The ICHS is designed to meet the growing demand for highly-skilled humanitarian service professionals who are fully formed in Catholic faith and morals.

Stephen M. Rasche, JD, faculty fellow at Franciscan University and founding director of the institute, stated that its mission is “to identify, develop, support, and implement vocational approaches to humanitarian service that are fully informed by and faithful to the teachings and magisterium of the Catholic Church.”

The ICHS aims to equip students and others through theology formation, rigorous practical training, and direct field experience. This will enable them to embrace humanitarian service as a vocation and provide ongoing practical assistance to those in need both locally and globally.

The ICHS forms part of Franciscan University’s new “Franciscan Encounter” initiative. This initiative seeks to consolidate and leverage the University’s academic, administrative, and evangelizing resources to extend its mission and impact beyond its Steubenville campus.

Initial projects of the institute will be undertaken in collaboration with dioceses in Nigeria. The ICHS will implement donor funding and assistance in rehabilitating a major Catholic school as well as a long-term care hospital for tuberculosis and leprosy patients.

Rasche commented on these initiatives saying: “These types of projects are at the heart of the Catholic service tradition of providing education and health care to the marginalized.”

The ICHS is based at Franciscan University but its collaborative efforts will have national and international reach. For the first three to five years, it will focus on marginalized communities in Africa, Middle East, select open-conflict zones including Ukraine as well as Ohio River Valley and western Pennsylvania in the United States.

Father Dave Pivonka, TOR ’89, president of Franciscan University, expressed his excitement about the new institute: “We are thrilled to announce this new Institute for Catholic Humanitarian Service at Franciscan. With Steve Rasche’s vast experience and inspirational leadership, we are confident this institute will foster a much-needed renewal of proven Catholic alternatives to the current top-down, secular approaches that dominate global humanitarian aid today.”

Rasche brings over 35 years of international business and front-line senior management experience in Catholic humanitarian service. He has facilitated the successful implementation of over $50 million in institutional and private aid in some of the most marginalized and dangerous parts of the world.

Rasche sees ICHS as a response to a profound practical and moral problem in international humanitarian service. He stated: “Despite the establishment of an entrenched, well-financed international aid industry, those of us with experience working closely with the marginalized in the field, often through the Church, have seen how little of the mainstream aid reaches those most in need.”

The ICHS will be overseen by an independent board of directors comprised of global Catholic clergy, religious, and lay persons with demonstrated leadership in Catholic humanitarian service.

For more information about the ICHS and how you can support its work, please visit franciscan.edu/catholic-humanitarian-service/.