“Cor Unum” will also appoint an ecclesiastical assistant tasked with promoting the “Catholic identity” of Caritas Internationalis, and the Vatican’s Secretariat of State will closely supervise the confederation’s contacts with foreign governments.

The new rules will not directly affect Catholic Relief Services, the official aid agency of the U.S. Catholic bishops. But Cardinal Robert Sarah, president of the pontifical council, explained in L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s semiofficial newspaper, that bishops could be “inspired” by the new rules to revise the statutes of national Catholic charities.

The Vatican move is part of a more general drive to promote Catholic identity in Catholic aid operations at all levels. Critics have complained that Catholic charities operate often like secular nongovernmental organizations and partner with groups that sometimes don’t share Catholic values, including the church’s opposition to birth control.

In a message addressed to the confederation’s general assembly last May, Pope Benedict XVI warned that without an explicit reference to God, aid work risked “falling prey to harmful ideologies.” He also warned that, as Caritas Internationalis shared the church’s mission, the Holy See was entitled to exercise oversight of its operations.

According to Caritas Internationalis secretary general, Michel Roy, the new rules should be seen as a step to “integrate” the organization’s operations within the Holy See and will reinforce Catholic advocacy on behalf of the poor, “because we will be able to speak in the name of the Church.”