Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain. —Isaiah 40:4
In Appalachia, Isaiah’s words take on a different meaning. Here, explosives and huge machines work in tandem to blow the tops off mountains to get at the coal buried deep below. Slurry ponds are filled up with toxic waste from these processes, and dams are just waiting to burst like they did in the 1972 Buffalo Creek flood that killed 125 people, injured over 1,000 and destroyed hundreds of homes in West Virginia. Or like the Martin County coal slurry spill in 2000 in Kentucky, which contaminated over 100 miles of waterways, as well as the local drinking supply. Coal barons like Don Blankenship escape with minimal jail time after being convicted of conspiring to commit mine safety violations and are then handed golden parachutes while the very people they employ are burdened with lung disease, cancers and workplace fatalities.
For more than five decades, the Catholic Committee of Appalachia has listened to the people affected by these forces of destruction and shared their stories in a series of pastoral letters. Along with stories of environmental destruction, those letters also shared stories of poverty, imprisonment, addiction and more. In addition to the letters, through the years members of the C.C.A. have fought for justice for Appalachians through protests and activism, taking on the likes of King Coal, state legislatures and even a Catholic bishop. Like Isaiah and other Old Testament prophets, they have long been unafraid to speak truth to power.
The Catholic Committee of Appalachia was formed in 1970, born out of another group known as the Commission on Religion in Appalachia. As it describes itself on its website, the C.C.A. “is a grassroots, faith-based network.” Anybody is able to join, with much of its membership consisting of Catholic laypeople and clergy, though its membership also includes nonbelievers. Its first big splash came in 1975 with the publication of its first pastoral letter, signed by a group of 25 Catholic bishops from Appalachia’s 13 states, stretching from New York down to Georgia. That letter, titled “This Land Is Home to Me,” starts off by saying, “Many of our Catholic people, especially church workers, have asked us to respond to the cries of powerlessness from the region called Appalachia. We have listened to these cries and now we lend our own voice.”
At that time, the eco-social philosopher Joe Holland was working as a research associate at the Center of Concern in Washington D.C., which was a think tank co-founded by Pedro Arrupe, S.J., then-superior general of the Society of Jesus, and then-Bishop Joseph Bernardin, general secretary at the time of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (now the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops). Because of his background with Latin American liberation theology, Mr. Holland was asked to ghostwrite the letter. “It connected me to a vibrant Catholic community of prophetic figures who continue to inspire me,” Mr. Holland told me recently by email.
In 2020, marking the C.C.A.’s 50th anniversary, Father Les Schmidt, who worked in Appalachia with the Glenmary Home Missioners, spoke in a video about how he brought Mr. Holland on board for the letter. Father Schmidt recalled how he told Mr. Holland that the letter needed to capture the voices of the Appalachian people, that “it’s got to be the music” of the people.
Father Schmidt made every effort to know where people were coming from. Along with Sister Beth Davies of the Congregation of Notre Dame, another Appalachian activist, he had conducted numerous listening sessions with individuals throughout Appalachia to better learn about their hopes and their struggles. Sister Davies and Father Schmidt “literally spent every day of October 1973 on the road listening to justice-seeking folks in 11 of the 13 Appalachian states,” Sister Davies remembered in a speech in 1995.
That first pastoral letter by the C.C.A. had a profound impact, much of it detailed in a master’s thesis by the educator Alyssa Pasternak Post in 2011. “‘This Land Is Home to Me’ remains a landmark document on justice and life in the U.S. Catholic context,” Ms. Pasternak Post wrote. After the publication of the C.C.A. letter, U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd wrote a letter to Bishop Joseph Hodges of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia praising the work. In 1976, inspired by the message of the pastoral letter, two religious sisters established the Big Laurel Learning Center in Kermit, W. Va. In 1977, also inspired by the pastoral letter, Marie Cirillo founded the Woodland Community Land Trust in Tennessee in response to the desolation brought on by absentee land ownership that is prevalent throughout Appalachia. In the years following its publication, 200,000 copies of the letter were distributed.
In 1995, 20 years after the publication of “This Land Is Home to Me,” Mr. Holland would find himself writing the C.C.A.’s follow-up letter, “At Home in the Web of Life.” This second pastoral letter addressed many of the themes of the first one while honing in even more on creating a sense of community in Appalachia’s industrial wastelands. “In this letter,” it reads, “we wish to explore the new tasks which lie before us, particularly the task of creating or defending what are called ‘sustainable communities.’ These are communities where people and the rest of nature can live together in harmony and not rob future generations.” This second pastoral letter created an impact similar to that of the first.
A Unifying Cause
A short documentary created in 2015 highlighted some of the organization’s influence, explaining that “for almost half a century, each C.C.A. member has been a living pastoral, echoing and rising to the cry of Appalachia and her people.” This documentary was produced by the Kentucky filmmaker David Harl, who first became involved with the C.C.A. about two decades ago. Mr. Harl recruited the actor Martin Sheen to narrate. Mr. Harl knew Mr. Sheen was a supporter of the Catholic Worker Movement and managed to obtain the actor’s home address, noting that Mr. Sheen does not use email.
“I thought it was worth a try, so I wrote him a letter and told him what I was doing and [asked] if he would consider lending his voice,” Mr. Harl told me by email. “I was surprised when he gave me a call on the phone and we chatted for a bit and he agreed to voice the film.”
Mr. Harl flew out to Los Angeles to meet Mr. Sheen in person and record the narration. During that time, the two were able to talk even more about the C.C.A., forging a close friendship that lasts to this day.
“Martin and his wife, Janet, are incredible people,” Mr. Harl added. “He approaches his acting career like a professional and is unmatched in his talent. However, his true heart is in the Catholic Church and the social teachings…. He thinks like a C.C.A. member, although I’m not sure he knows that.”
Over the years, the C.C.A. has attracted Catholics and non-Catholics alike to the cause. Darick Biondi, a United Methodist pastor, is one who has been drawn to its work. He attended Wheeling Jesuit University from 2003 to 2007, where, in his own words, he was “a bit of a nerd.” For some classes, he was required to attend certain events on campus, but “if anything was free, I was going to show up,” he said. One of those free events turned out to be a panel that featured members of the C.C.A.
Mr. Biondi recalled it was the first time he heard a panel like that discussing injustices in the coalfields, debating things like whether collateral damage brought about by mountaintop removal was really an “act of God,” as companies claimed, or whether it was a result of human negligence. “It shifted my entire mindset,” he said.
After the panel, Mr. Biondi came across a table where copies of “This Land Is Home to Me” and “At Home in the Web of Life” were displayed. At first, he thought the copies were free for the taking, only to find out that they were a few dollars each. Even a few dollars can be hard to come by for a college freshman. Fortunately, the university’s president was standing nearby and generously purchased the copies for the student. “That act of generosity transformed my life,” Mr. Biondi said.
Still, it was a few years before Mr. Biondi got around to actually reading the letters in full. Throughout college, he envisioned himself ministering in a large city. “Pittsburgh was the smallest city I could see myself in,” he said. But at a silent retreat in 2007, he read through the letters and his thinking changed: “It made me realize there is a fight here in Appalachia that is begging to happen and needs to happen, and I believe God was calling me to stay.” As a result, for over a decade now Mr. Biondi has been ministering in and around Charleston, W. Va., a city with a population of 47,000 people.
Seeking to Listen
Throughout its history, the C.C.A. and its members have stood up for a number of issues. For instance, in 1999 the organization called for people to take part in weekly “power-down days.” On these days, people were encouraged to abstain from electronic consumption as a way “to reflect upon our society’s level of power consumption, which renders assaults on the environment ‘necessary’,” and to think “about the masses of people in the world for whom access to such electrical power is limited and inconsistent.”
In 2007, the C.C.A. co-sponsored a tour of mountaintop removal sites in eastern Kentucky for various religious leaders, showing them the devastating effects strip mining had on the land. More than anything, though, the C.C.A. has sought to listen. As 2015 approached, its members knew they wanted to produce yet another pastoral letter for the 20th anniversary of “At Home in the Web of Life,” which was written 20 years after “This Land Is Home to Me.” Bishop John Stowe of the diocese of Lexington, Ky., wrote a cover letter for the document. But the C.C.A. decided not to seek wider episcopal input or approval for the text. Ms. Kirkhope told the Appalachian Chronicle: “People have their own authority in the church. We didn’t feel it necessary to get [the bishops’] endorsement.” The letter would instead be a true people’s pastoral, telling stories drawn from Appalachia’s most vulnerable populations. To prepare, the C.C.A. conducted over 1,000 listening sessions with people from the region.
C.C.A. member Donna Becher volunteered to type up the listening sessions. For Ms. Becher, assisting with the people’s pastoral and being involved with the C.C.A. in general filled “a spiritual need to be involved in the care for creation.” She explained that the listening sessions began by asking people two questions: “What is it like to be you, and what is it like to be in this place?”
“The pastoral was based on stories,” Ms. Becher said. “Stories of crucified people and crucified places.”
The people’s pastoral, “The Telling Takes Us Home: Taking Our Place in the Stories that Shape Us,” was published in December 2015. Among the voices included in the document were those of women, coal miners, the unhoused and the imprisoned.
People of color were also represented in the pastoral, including that of an Indigenous prison chaplain who recounted how he had “been the victim of harassment, detainment, and searches by law enforcement officials while traveling and attending events in Native attire.” And L.G.B.T.Q. individuals were included: “Gay and lesbian Catholics gathering for a retreat in Virginia shared experiences of being treated like lepers in society and in the church. Instead of a place of welcome and safety, the church is often a ‘hell of pain,’ a place where they are ‘discussed and accused but rarely appreciated.’”
“People find liberation in telling stories of struggle, because these stories show us that things are not as they should be,” the pastoral states. “And people find liberation, too, in telling stories of creativity, community, and justice, because in them we catch glimpses of a new world.”
The foreword to “The Telling Takes Us Home” invokes Pope Francis, referring to his call “to become a ‘messy’ church that is not afraid to take risks.” Ms. Becher recalled that, following the pastoral’s publication, a copy was sent to the Vatican. In return, the C.C.A. received a thank-you note. She could not remember if Pope Francis himself signed the note, but she did remember it was worded in such a way that implied he had read it. Either way, Ms. Becher said, “we’re on the radar.”
‘The Spirit of a Prophet’
A key individual in putting the C.C.A. on the radar was Michael Iafrate, who served as the lead author for the people’s pastoral. Andrea Herrick, a C.C.A. member who was raised Methodist, attributes her own involvement with the organization to Mr. Iafrate’s influence. She had crossed paths with him through the local music scene in Wheeling, W. Va., and had found him to have an “inspiring, refreshing vision for what Catholicism could be in Appalachia.”
“He listened to and cared for people the church had hurt,” Ms. Herrick added. But those qualities set Mr. Iafrate—and the C.C.A.—on a collision course with Bishop Michael Bransfield, who served as bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston from 2005 to 2018.
Beginning in 2019, The Washington Post published stories documenting many troubling allegations regarding Bishop Bransfield. A 60-page report delivered to Archbishop William Lori, who served as apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston following Bishop Bransfield’s resignation in 2018, provided additional details into the alleged wrongdoing, including the findings that the bishop sexually harassed seminarians and priests, abused alcohol and prescription drugs, mismanaged diocesan money, and lived a lavish lifestyle “that was in stark contrast to the faithful he served and was for his own benefit.” While many in the diocese were struggling to get food on the table, Bishop Bransfield was flying in a private jet.
At the time this news broke, Mr. Iafrate was serving as co-coordinator of the C.C.A. alongside Jeannie Kirkhope. As fellow West Virginians living and worshiping in the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, Mr. Iafrate and Ms. Kirkhope kept the pressure on Bishop Bransfield and church leadership. They wrote op-eds and gave interviews, calling for restitutions and reforms. “When we don’t speak up, we are complicit in the abuse and its cover-up through our silence,” they wrote in one such op-ed, adding, “Let us work to provide justice for lambs we have lost, return dignity to those surviving, and bestow merciful, tough love on our clerics. Indeed, let us go, in peace, to love and serve the Lord.”
In an interview with Weelunk, an online magazine in Wheeling, Mr. Iafrate succinctly explained his reasons for taking on Bishop Bransfield and those he viewed as the bishop’s enablers: “I can’t be a Catholic and not fight for a better church. I can’t be a Catholic with my back to the people who Catholicism hurts.”
Ultimately, Bishop Bransfield paid $400,000 in restitution to the diocese and issued an apology. In an interview with Our Sunday Visitor, Bishop Mark Brennan, who succeeded Bishop Bransfield as bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, described his predecessor’s words as a “non-apology in the form of an apology.” Mr. Iafrate called the outcome “disappointing,” given that Bishop Bransfield allegedly misspent millions of dollars.
In 2021, Mr. Iafrate passed away from cancer at age 44. His obituary stated that although he was born in Valparaiso, Ind., his “fire was ignited in Appalachia. He remained infatuated with and tethered to these mountains. By chance, the last smell from this earth he enjoyed was a honeysuckle vine, snuck into his hospital room.”
“I miss him so much,” C.C.A. member Moira Reilly, a hospital chaplain, said. “He had the spirit of a prophet.”
In Search of Healing
The Bransfield scandal caused some friction between the C.C.A. and the Catholic hierarchy. For instance, in 2019 the C.C.A. protested at a chrism Mass led by Archbishop Lori, calling for a dialogue with the archbishop “to give an honest account of the failures of the Church so that all may grow together in holiness.” Archbishop Lori responded by issuing a reprimand, saying, “The Mass should never be used as a moment for demonstration or the expression of individual opinion, especially during Holy Week, and I ask you, as the concerned Catholics you are, to avoid such actions in the future.”
In the years since, however, there has been a sort of detente between the C.C.A. and some members of the episcopate. The year 2025 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of “This Land Is Home to Me.” To commemorate the occasion, the C.C.A. co-hosted, along with three Catholic bishops, a gathering in Pittsburgh that brought together clergy, laity and labor activists. Around 150 people were present.
Bishop Brennan spoke at the event, and even called for boycotts to address the problem of economic disparity. In an interview with America, Bishop Brennan explained that the relationship between the C.C.A. and the diocese has been slowly healing since the fallout of the Bishop Bransfield scandal. Early in his tenure, Bishop Brennan attended the C.C.A.’s annual gathering, making an effort to listen and learn.
“It’s a good organization that can help keep alive the issues people are dealing with,” Bishop Brennan said of the C.C.A., citing issues like poverty and the extraction of minerals. “The committee can be helpful to keep alive Appalachian culture, too. That’s a service.”
Today, the C.C.A. has active chapters in West Virginia, Kentucky and North Carolina. Molly Linehan Belcher, the C.C.A.’s current board chair, said that they have over 280 official members, including many laypeople and non-Catholics. But that number, according to Ms. Linehan Belcher, does not reflect the vast number of individuals who work adjacently with the C.C.A. without being on their membership rolls. Until mid-2024, the C.C.A. had paid staff positions. Now, all positions are volunteer. Despite these changes, the basic principles of the C.C.A. have remained consistent over time.
“We are rooted in Appalachia,” Ms. Linehan Belcher said. “We seek to be a listening presence for the people on the peripheries.”
Ms. Linehan Belcher explained that C.C.A. is currently hosting listening sessions throughout the region, centered on small groups reading passages from the pastoral letters and asking how they have been affected by the issues discussed. These gatherings may happen in church basements, coffee shops or people’s homes.
“We seek to listen to the most vulnerable,” she said. “We take seriously our Catholic standing and ask, ‘How do we make sure the little voices are still heard?’”
This September, the C.C.A. will be hosting its 56th annual gathering. As its website states, it will be “a celebration of faith and social justice and a way to reconnect with our friends and community.”
Echoing Bishop Brennan’s comments, Ms. Linehan Belcher said the C.C.A. is trying to mend its relationship with the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston and Catholic clerics, as evidenced by the C.C.A.’s collaboration with the Catholic bishops in hosting the Pittsburgh gathering. Ms. Linehan Belcher also acknowledged there are still some differences, particularly in the views of the roles of women and also the L.G.B.T.Q. community in the church.
Over the years, the C.C.A. has issued several statements and resolutions, many of which align with the liberal side of the American political spectrum. A 1999 resolution called for universal health care. A statement in 2016 mourned the victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting, and that same year the C.C.A. issued a statement opposing a bill known as the West Virginia Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which it believed was a “license to discriminate” against L.G.B.T.Q. individuals. In 2021, a statement condemned the events of January 6.
Ms. Linehan Belcher urged people to listen to one another more carefully, especially to those with whom they may disagree. It is important to believe, she said, that others are also working for the common good, saying, “We need more people who believe in that.”
But Donna Becher asked what many may be wondering: What is the future of the C.C.A.?
Ms. Linehan Belcher explained that the C.C.A. plans to focus on issues like the construction of data centers in Virginia and West Virginia, Tennessee companies building components of nuclear weapons, and the global rise of A.I. “Land ownership, immigration and voting rights, especially for people of color, continue to be serious issues across our region,” Ms. Linehan Belcher added.
“The word prophetic is in our mission statement,” Ms. Becher said. “We are bringing the Gospel to Appalachia—well, not really bringing it. The Gospel message is already here and we are here.”
Her words echo those of the Book of Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.”
This article appears in June 2026.
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