Caritas Latin America and Caribbean
Panamerican Catholic charity confederation
Caritas Latin America and Caribbean (Spanish: Cáritas América Latina y el Caribe; Portuguese: Cáritas América Latina e Caribe) is a network of Catholic nonprofit organisations active in Latin America and the Caribbean and one of the seven regions of the global Caritas Internationalis confederation.
Its name is used both for the regional secretariat and its network of 22 member organisations, but the secretariat is also known as Secretariado Latinoamericano y del Caribe de Caritas (SELACC).
Work
The role of Caritas Latin America and Caribbean is to foster peer exchange and learning among its member organisations, and to speak with a unified voice. The secretariat (SELACC) is also engaged in advocacy, for example concerning the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean Summits as well as in the institutional capacity strengthening of its member organisations.
Membership and structure
Unlike other regions of Caritas Internationalis, such as Caritas Europa with its secretariat in Brussels, or Caritas Africa with its secretariat in Lomé, the secretariat of Caritas Latin America and Caribbean is decentralised, albeit legally registered in San José, Costa Rica. This means that the staff is located in the offices of its various member organisations across the continent.
The member organisations are the national Caritas organisations of Latin America. These are subdivided into regional subgroups: Camex for Central America, Caribe for the Caribbean island organisations, Bolivariana for north-eastern South America and Cono Sur for the Southern tip of the continent as well as for Brazil.
The country offices of other Caritas organisations, such as of the American Catholic Relief Services or of Caritas Switzerland, are not members of Caritas Latin America and Caribbean.
“Caritas Latin America and Caribbean” enters the record as panamerican Catholic charity confederation. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Caritas, Latin and America can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Caritas Latin America and Caribbean” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Caritas, Latin and America provides the most credible route into that argument.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q126112948. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Caritas Latin America and Caribbean”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Caritas Latin America and Caribbean primary sources, Caritas Latin America and Caribbean archive and Caritas research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Caritas Latin America and Caribbean”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which institution is responsible for the underlying evidence?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Caritas Latin America and Caribbean” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.