Cardinal Perspectives: Executive Vice President of Catholic Charities USA, Brian Corbin, B.A. 1984

Welcome to Cardinal Perspectives, a series featuring in-depth conversations with alumni, students, faculty, staff and the extended family and community of The Catholic University of America.

Brian Corbin received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Catholic University in 1984 and is now the executive vice president of member services at Catholic Charities USA, or CCUSA. With more than 27 years of diocesan leadership in Youngstown, Ohio, and 10 years at CCUSA, he has advanced Catholic social ministry in roles ranging from refugee services to pro-life advocacy.

Brian has served on numerous boards, including as the chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' National Advisory Council and the secretary of the International Catholic Migration Commission. He teaches ethics and Catholic social doctrine at Walsh University and holds a doctorate in organizational leadership, with ongoing Ph.D. studies in political economy at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a published scholar and a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre.

This conversation is facilitated by Kirsten Evans, associate vice president for Diocesan Relations and International Engagement at Catholic University.

*This transcript is based on an audio recording and has been lightly edited for readability. It reflects the substance of the conversation but may not be a verbatim record.

Kirsten Evans
It’s wonderful to be here today. I'm Kirsten Evans, one of the associate vice presidents at The Catholic University of America. It is an absolute pleasure and joy for me to be sitting here today with Brian Corbin, an alumnus of our University.

Brian finished his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Political Science in 1984. Am I right in that? And you are now the executive vice president of member services at Catholic Charities USA, which is a very valued partner of the University.

You're a very active alumnus and you have given a lot back to the University throughout the years. We are always thrilled to have you on campus and appreciate the time and attention that you've given to the University. So thank you so much for sitting down with us.

Brian Corbin
Oh my goodness, my pleasure. Thank you for inviting me. I’m very honored and grateful.

Kirsten Evans
Let me start with that. If you don't mind me asking Brian, how did you end up at Catholic University?

Brian Corbin
I have to go back to 1979. I was applying that year to get into the class of 1980, or to get into school for my freshman year in 1980. I went to a public school. I was very active in Catholic youth ministry in the Diocese of Portland, Maine. A little footnote: I had been appointed by the Bishop of Portland, Maine to serve on the Board of Directors at Catholic Charities of Maine when I was 16 years old.

They had a youth representative. This wasn't a youth board, it wasn't an advisor group. The bishop appointed a young person every two years for the junior and senior year of a student's life to serve. I was representing the voice of youth on the corporate board of Catholic Charities, which kind of gets to the story of why I went to Catholic University ultimately.

So I started that way, and at 17, 18 years old, I had no idea what I was doing in governance. But it was a formative moment because it was a first glimpse. I was a very active person in church. I lectored, I was a musician. But seeing the work of Catholic Charities in Maine at 17 years old, at a corporate level, I said, “wow, this is an important part of the Church.”

So at that point, I started applying for bachelor's degrees. I applied to your typical state university, University of Maine, where my mom and my brother went. But there were two choices. One was University of Notre Dame and one was The Catholic University of America.

I got accepted at both. As I was planning my next step, the president of Colby College in Waterville, Maine, who was a good friend of my mom's – his wife worked with my mother. He came to dinner one night to help me do some due diligence.  He said, ‘Brian, what do you really want to study?” And I said, “I really want to bring together justice and our faith because of this experience in Catholic Charities.”

And he said, “Brian, I know Notre Dame's decent and good, but you're going to be at The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.” Number one, think about that. Number two, at that time, there were more graduate students than undergraduate students at Catholic University. He said, “Just think of the possibilities of moving quickly through higher level education. And because there are so many graduate students, you might have an opportunity to touch deeper subjects with professors.”

Kirsten Evans
Oh wow. Insightful.

Brian Corbin
That, to me, was the end. It was Catholic University, here I come. So I started in the class of 1980 and it was one of the best decisions I ever made.

It was a great location because I was in the School of Philosophy. I knew I wanted to study philosophy, but as you could well imagine your parents saying, they were asking what I was going to do with a degree in philosophy.

I took my first international security class. It was a weapons control class in the Department of Politics. I fell in love with this professor, in a platonic sense of academic works. Dr. Joan Barth Urban, who was a Soviet expert.  It just triggered something in me. I became her research assistant and combined the School Philosophy studies with international security.

At that point in philosophy school, we had to write a thesis. And at that very moment in 1983 or 1984, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops was publishing their very famous document on peace, their economic pastoral on peace. And it was during the MX Missile debate and war and the use of tactical nuclear weapons in a European theater.

And because I was studying Soviet politics with Dr. Urban and had these incredible philosophy classes on moral philosophy and social philosophy, my thesis was on the application of Thomas Aquinas's Just War Theory to the current debate on the MX Missile.

That got me into MIT grad school with a full scholarship to study for my doctorate in international security and economics.

So because of that thesis, I was told by people at MIT that accepted me for the doctoral work, that it is incredible that we have a person who actually knows tactical weapons, weapon systems, and has this incredible D.C. experience in public policy, but also the ability to use moral thinking.

My whole trajectory, from that point on, was because of Catholic University. It was a great opportunity for me.

Kirsten Evans
That is so amazing. We hear that a lot among alumni and graduates who say that when they arrive to the workplace, one of the things that they – sometimes are surprised by it – but one of the things that they find over-and-over again that distinguishes them is the ability to think critically and to think within ethical and philosophical frameworks.

A lot of times their colleagues who might have incredible technical backgrounds or technical education didn't necessarily receive those teachings. And still today, all of our undergraduates are required to take a certain number of philosophy and theology classes for that reason. I was a philosophy major, as well.

Would you mind telling us a little bit about the journey from Catholic Charities on the youth board to The Catholic University of America. You go on to MIT to do your graduate and your doctoral degrees. What was the journey back to Catholic Charities?

Brian Corbin
So, between 1980 and 1984, I had the opportunity to intern and work with a group of Jesuits that were on Otis Street, right up the street from CatholicU, it was called the Center of Concern.

Father Peter Henriot, Father Phil Land, Father Mike Schultheis, Jane Blewett, and Maria O'Reilly, they were all doctors in various fields and they were trying to bring together the intellectual tradition of the church and Catholic social teaching and apply it to modern politics and modern economic thinking.

I was Father Pete Henriot's intern for three years. Father Pete Henriot was a Ph.D. at Harvard. Actually, he did a lot of work in voting rights and was an expert in reading the signs of the times and what was called doing social analysis.

I had a great formation. Remember, I'm bringing together philosophy, moral philosophy, and nuclear strategy, and they helped me, from an outside perspective in real time, think about how to bring those two worlds together.

For a 20-year-old, I didn't have a clue.  But by being an intern for that group of scholars who were a part of the Jesuit Society of Jesus and doing this work full-time allowed me to think through and ask, “how do I make these things practical in public policy and in work?”

So again, that picture will allow me to get to grad school to do a doctorate in political economy at MIT. But what happened after, as I was finishing my doctoral work, I called this Father Peter, again, who's a Jesuit at the Center Concern. And I said, “Okay, I am ready. I'm ready to find a job to teach.” And he was like, “What are you going to teach? You're 25.”

I said, “Hey, I just got through this incredible program at MIT!” And again, he said, “Yeah, you're 25. What are you going to teach?” I said, “All about these incredible books and the scholars.”

He was adamant. “No, I'm asking you, what are you going to teach? I'm trying to tell you, get out there. You've been in the academy too long already. Go do something. Remember, you were on the board of a Catholic Charities institution.”

He knew the Bishop of Youngstown, Ohio, James W. Malone, Ph.D., The Catholic University of America. He was the president of the U.S. Bishops when they wrote this document on the peace pastoral.

He was looking for a director of Catholic Charities. And so Father Peter connected me with Bishop James W. Malone. And the next thing you know, I was made the director of Catholic Charities in Youngstown, Ohio.

I started in 1987, doing work in a highly impacted community that had been devastated by the decline in the collapse of the steel industry. It was a mixture between Appalachia and the Rust Belt. It was a pretty hard place to be in the sense that, while the people were fantastic, it was an economic collapse.

He wanted someone who was probably an outsider, and young and naive to try things to be innovative and get out there. And that was how I got to Catholic Charities, by happy mistakes that I don't think were that mistakes. It was probably the Holy Spirit.

Kirsten Evans
Divine providence.

Brian Corbin
Being at the right place, right time.

Kirsten Evans
But also because you've never left.

Brian Corbin
Right, because I never left. I was in Youngstown, Ohio as director of Charities and the executive director of Health and Human Services for the Diocese of Youngstown, for 27 years.

And then from there, I served on the National Board of Catholic Charities for six years. I was the national secretary for three, and there was a point in time where Father Larry Snyder, who was the president of Catholic Charities, said, “Brian, I think it's time for you to do something else.”

And so he persuaded me to come to take this position.

That's the whole movement. But for 27 years, I actually worked in a diocese and did Health and Human Services, Catholic Charities, Catholic hospitals, our nursing homes, government relations, and community development in the Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio.

Kirsten Evans
You talk a little bit about that Rust Belt, and the experience of the community that you encountered on arriving in Youngstown. As you and I sit here today recording this podcast, we're nearing the holiday season. We're coming up to Thanksgiving. Food security is  always an issue across communities throughout the United States. It becomes something that, as a nation, we spend more time thinking about around the Thanksgiving holiday season.

Can you tell me a little bit about the work of Catholic Charities across the country now, putting on your Catholic Charities USA hat, on the topic of food security and what Catholic Charities does to provide food and other basic resources that are needed for underserved communities throughout the United States?

Brian Corbin 
Yes. Let me explain a little bit about Catholic Charities USA and the Catholic Charities model.

Catholic Charities USA, by the way, was founded on the steps of McMahon Hall on September 25, 1910. We have this great picture of that moment. And then on September 25, 2010, exactly 100 years later, we took another picture of all of us that were gathered at Catholic University of America to celebrate the hundredth anniversary. So there's an incredible connection between Catholic Charities USA and The Catholic University of America.

Catholic Charities USA is a membership organization composed of 168 diocesan Catholic Charities entities. Each diocese is organized a little differently. In that 168 dioceses, we have the equivalent to about 750 separate corporations. And then within that, we are in 3,500 locations in all 50 states, including the five territories: Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., which is technically a territory. Every single zip code in the United States has a responsible Catholic Charities.

Because we're organized by diocese. As you well know how that works in church structures, it's a network of independent corporations because almost 99% of all Catholic Charities agencies report directly to the bishop, and/or the bishops that chair the board of that corporation. So we are the diocesan corporation of the bishop to do social services, for the most part. Every diocese has a little twist on that theme.

Catholic Charities USA was founded for three purposes: to help build diocesan capacity, to professionalize social work (and I'm gonna get back to that shortly), and third, to be the attorney for the poor. To translate everything we do in services to a public policy position and to be their voice.

Kirsten Evans
I love that phrase, the attorney for the poor.

Brian Corbin
Our key job at Catholic Charities USA is to focus on federal legislation. All local dioceses focus on state and local government relations. That's their job.

But, getting back to your question, now that that's understood a little bit. Every year we do an annual survey of the ministries that we support. We have 1,500 distinct ministries in those 168 organizations.

A lot of agencies are multifaceted – we just don't do one thing. From housing to food, to counseling, to adoption… You can imagine all of that. What we have found in our annual surveys over the years is that out of the people knocking on the door of a local Catholic Charities agency, 54% of them come with a food insecurity request.

By the time they've come to us, they're pretty stretched thin. It might be a food voucher. It might be a pantry gift. It might be a credit card to a local grocery store where they can buy it themselves. It might be a food basket. It might be a mass distribution at a parish.

So regardless, they came and found a way to come see us. Once we have that first conversation, our case workers tend to try to figure out, okay, you're here for a food insecurity issue. Is this just a one-time deal or what else is going on in your life?

Many times we find out it could be the first time. I just need it right now. It could be that something happened, I blew my car tire. I don't have the money for food because I spent it on the tire. But, what we have found mostly is there's something else going on. They have a rent issue. They may have a family marriage crisis. They may have a child crisis. They may have a debt crisis. They may have a health crisis.

What we try to do, to the best of our ability, is engage that client who comes in for food insecurity and say, what else can we do for you? And that's one of the gifts of the Catholic Charities social work movement is that we're really good at case management. Helping a client understand their problem and then helping them find other social services or programs that may help them.

One example would be, in many of our agencies, people come in and we ask if they’re eligible for food stamps or SNAP – Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program? They don’t know if there are. Most states now have interactive computer program software.

So you plug in their name, you plug in all their information, and in many states it will say whether they can apply for food stamps or not. Or it will say they can get disability assistance, or they can get unemployment insurance, or something else. We try to help them access the services that the state or the government provides to help move them out of this stress that they're in and help them work toward a long-term goal.

That being said, we'll help a client think through bigger pictures, but we have a whole spectrum of food security programs. One is, you might get help with your rent this time, so you can use your dollar for food. Or we have a food pantry, or we have a mass congregational dining, or we have Meals on Wheels for seniors, or we have something else, or, guess what? We also have community gardens.

We have programs for people who are in community gardens for themselves. We have some agencies who are working with people who take those community gardens and are harvesting food for food banks and for others, or actually producing them for flash freezing or preservation to sell in retail.

We have a continuum of things that people can be engaged in depending where their agency is. Not all agencies do the same thing, that's the beauty of the Catholic Charities in the Church. Subsidiarity is the principle. Local needs, local responses.

Last year we did a national strategic planning process and food insecurity is one of the eight signs of the times that we feel that we have to critically scrutinize in the light of the Gospel, as the Vatican called us to do in Gaudium et spes, food security is one of the big eight issues we're focusing on in the next several years.

Kirsten Evans
Can you share the other seven?  

Brian Corbin
They include the mental health crisis and immigration refugees. There's still mass movements of people. Plus disaster response and resiliency, affordable housing, loneliness and isolation, and polarization in our society, in our communities.

Another sign of the time that we've identified is distrust of institutions and asking what that means for the Church and for Catholic Charities particularly. And the final one is how do we attract, retain, promote, and keep staff people in human services.

So employment as a secondary issue, but as a primary issue within the social, within care sector. Not just Catholic Charities jobs, but the whole thing from nursing homes to Catholic hospitals to just the whole spectrum.

Those are the signs of the times that we identified as a network that we want to focus on for the next couple years. Times change, that's the whole point. But right now we think those are the ones we feel called to scrutinize in light of the gospel on how we should respond.

Kirsten Evans
Those are lofty and big but important goals.

Brian Corbin
And there are many ways of attacking it or addressing it. And that's where creativity comes in. There's no one answer, but please go out and experiment. Please go out, tell us, share your best practices. Help us inform social work. That's part of the second goal of our purpose, to professionalize social work.

Kirsten Evans
Thinking about our listeners, many of them are going to be alumni of the University or practicing Catholics within local communities.  And that gospel imperative applies to all of us. Some of us don't have the privilege of dedicating our professional lives to the service of the poor, but we still have the responsibility.

What are some of the ways that we can become involved in supporting Catholic Charities and many of the initiatives that you've already spoken about today?

Brian Corbin
Let me start with Catholic Charities, and I also want to give a big shout out to St. Vincent DePaul Society, because we work very closely with them.

One thing to do is go to CatholicCharitiesUSA.org. We have a page called “Seeking help.” Don't get confused about that, it goes both ways. You can type your ZIP code in and you'll find that your local Catholic Charities agency.

I'm sure they would love any type of financial donation. I’m sure they'd love any type of engagement to volunteer. That would be a phenomenal way to get connected locally.

Again, you can always certainly donate to Catholic Charities USA and all that money goes back to help support our agencies. You know that your money will be out for that.

That's one way of doing it. I know for sure, many of our Catholic Charities agencies would love to have people to volunteer their time, their treasure, and their talent. Think about that. As well as how maybe you could even engage your parish to do the same.

And then those who have St. Vincent de Paul Societies nearby. St. Vincent de Paul is another great model of people doing wonderful things at the local parish level for the most part.

I'm just using food quite honestly right now as the cut. But anything could happen. So please, your time, talent and treasure are so important to all of us. We truly appreciate that.

Kirsten Evans 
And would you mind expanding a little bit on some of those volunteer experiences? I have had the joy and the pleasure to volunteer with Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Arlington, helping teach English to immigrant communities, as well as a couple other things here and there.

You mentioned one of the focal areas being immigration and then helping immigrant communities assimilate, in order to be able to thrive. But what are some of the others opportunities if someone wanted to donate their time to Catholic Charities in any given diocese?

Brian Corbin
Very practically, sometimes Catholic Charities agencies need someone to help staff up a food program or help give out food. Another way would be to organize fundraisers themselves.

I know specifically here in the Diocese of Arlington, Catholic Charities has a big gala every year, which is completely run by volunteers. It's a great event. I think it’s February 6 coming up next year. So, that's just one date, one diocese. I know many dioceses have events.

In Youngstown, one way that they have volunteers is through what they call “Men Who Cook.” And what it is is a bunch of guys who are all non-professional chefs, who raise their hand to cook chili, a lot of chili. And we have this big event, it’s $50 a ticket. And these 20 guys who bought all their food, brought all their food, cooked all their food, are judged.

That has just been so much fun. Because it's like a bunch of doctors get together, a bunch of lawyers, and it's goofy, “Men Who Cook.” It's just been a fun event to raise money. That's another way of giving of your time, to share your gifts, but also find a creative way to do it.

To the other extreme, I mentioned we had 168 dioceses, which is equivalent to 750 separate corporations. They each have 15 board members on average.

Kirsten Evans
That's a big social network.

Brian Corbin
A board member term is every three years. A lot of time you can have three terms, which is your typical nonprofit structure. So every three years, someone is rolling off. Catholic Charities is always looking for new board members.

Now it's a different level of volunteering. It's one of due diligence and one of the duties of a nonprofit director. But again, they're always looking for people. So get on a committee, offer to serve on a committee right now if you're not on the board.

That's how people get into the system. They're always looking for external committee members. And the reason I mention that is because I had nine separate corporations in Youngstown when I was there. So I was in charge of 150 board members.

Every year I had a percent leaving and I needed to get a percent back on. So my job was always trying to find lay people – and clergy and religious – but mostly lay people for the most part, to take their baptismal promise as a Catholic and ask how they can be part of governance to help Catholic Charities be accountable, transparent, effective, and efficient. And that's the role of governance. That's the whole continuum of volunteering.

Kirsten Evans
Thank you. Can I pivot back to this connection, going back to those steps 1910.

Brian Corbin
On the steps of McMahon, September 25 to be exact.

Kirsten Evans
And this connection between The Catholic University of America and Catholic Charities. Do you see that the relationship still plays out post 1910? How much collaboration is there between Catholic Charities and Catholic University today?

Brian Corbin
Let me put it this way. The dean of the National Catholic School of Social Service served on the Board of Directors for the Catholic Charities USA for many years. So we had always had a link.

Sister Ann Patrick was the dean at one point. I remember her because we were on the board together. So I got to become friends with her, a happy memory.

There was always this kind of organic relationship and that was differentiated after a while.

I was very lucky that Dr. Jo Ann Regan, the current dean of the school, found out I was an alumnus. We were talking one day and she said that they were looking for Board of Visitors members and asked if I would be willing to serve in that capacity.

And I said, “Absolutely!” Because I thought it was a great opportunity. Then because of that role, she and I began to convene faculty members and practitioners here at Catholic Charities USA to start thinking about possible evaluation and research projects for students and faculty using projects that we are piloting or testing. We have several of those going on right now.

At the local level, I do know that the National School of Social Services works very closely with Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington on a homeless project, along with other things. There are a lot of placements of their master's students and bachelor's students, especially with Catholic Charities D.C., Arlington, and Baltimore because they are so close to the school, makes infinite sense.

We're also trying to work with the engineering and business schools at Catholic University to help Catholic Charities USA explore the best use of artificial intelligence to help solve poverty.

Now, what does that mean? It's a huge question. How can we use AI to actually look at research questions, look at data, look at projections, and see how we can use that tool to help social work as a profession better understand its role and understand how to use AI properly. Even to look at macro data of all of our institutions in the United States and Catholic Charities to see if there are any trends going on, if there’s something that we're missing. To ask some hard questions about data mining, what's working and what doesn't work, and what actually gets people out of poverty.

Those are the global questions. We're still dancing around that right now, thinking how to do that. But it's an exciting moment that we can bring together the College of Engineering, Physics, and Computer, the Busch School of Business, the National Catholic School of Social Service, and Catholic Charities USA, in a pontifical university, working with the national Catholic Charities official representatives of the U.S. Bishops in domestic poverty.

I want to make Pope Leo XIV proud that we are ahead of the curve on how to help use AI ethically to solve the problem of poverty in the world. It's a big question. It may never be answered, but it's a way we need to start thinking and be innovative.

Kirsten Evans
And that's the kind of collaboration that the University loves, right? That interdisciplinary collaboration between the School of Social Services, the College of Engineering, Physics, and Computing, the Busch School of Business. All galvanizing around a problem set, and that problem set that is really deep in the heart of the Church – around care for the poor and the marginalized. It’s also deep within the heart of the University, which is called to serve the Catholic community and the greater national community of the United States in helping to form leaders that are going to help build a better society for the entire nation.

Talking about Catholic University and your time as an undergraduate here, I'm curious, is there a particular memory that comes to mind when you think about your years at the University that you would want to share?

Brian Corbin
Of course, daily life on campus was great. Meeting some incredible theologians and lawyers and thinkers was great. I told you I became a research assistant for Dr. Joan Barth Urban. She was writing a book on Soviet strategy, nuclear strategy, and I was her research assistant for the book.

Because of that, she was a Ford Foundation professor, and thanks to that grant, she was able to bring a team of global experts to campus on the European Theater and the Soviet military. And we had this incredible five-day symposium of leading experts on Italy, on France, on Spain, on the Soviet Union, on nuclear military strategy, which brought together people from the Pentagon and all these scholars.

The one scholar that came that I'll never forget, was a guy named Robert Putnam. He is a sociologist at Harvard and is known for his book Bowling Alone. But prior to that, when Robert Putnam was not as well known, he was an expert on Italian political culture and the resistance and use of what's going on in communist Russia vis-a-vis the Italian community.

I got a chance to spend five days with Robert Putnam in an earlier life when he actually was an expert on Italy. That will never leave my memory, only because just being in the room with all these scholars, sponsored by the Ford Foundation. We had some generals and military intelligence people talking about the fate of Soviet military history and the practice of Soviet military operations in the context of the European Theater.

Where else could you do that? At least for me in the 1980s was at The Catholic University of America. That was an incredible moment for me.

Kirsten Evans
Because of our location in Washington, D.C., it always amazes me, the people that have come across campus. The diplomats, the policy makers, the high level business leaders.

It's incredible what is drawn onto campus, because of the international scope of the Church and that the Catholic church has this portfolio that expands the entire globe. And then, just like Catholic Charities USA and your headquarters, we as a University are seated right in the middle of the city of power of the United States.

You get both worlds.

Brian Corbin
Exactly. Going back, remember I told you about the president of Colby College, who helped me do due diligence? That was exactly his point back, at least in the 1980s, how powerful The Catholic University of America was. And he knew it as a president of a secular institution.

Kirsten Evans
As a president of a college of his own. That’s impressive.

Can I ask you one final question? What do you most love about your job?

Brian Corbin
What I most love about my job is the ability to visit 168 locations at minimum. And to see the actual work they're doing at Catholic Charities in a local diocese because every diocese has a different twist, a different response, a different way of thinking, because of the principle of subsidiarity at its best.

Going out and seeing the work they're doing and coming back and telling that story, to be an advocate, to be an attorney for the poor here in Washington. It's connecting the actual work we do in the field to public policies here in Washington. That's my favorite part of the work.

Kirsten Evans 
Brian Corbin, an amazing alum. We are honored to have you as a member of the family.

Thank you for the work that you do on behalf of the poor and the marginalized across the country, and thank you for the partnership that you have with the University and in fulfilling its mission.

Brian Corbin
Thank you very much. Glad to be here.