IMAGE: CNS/Nancy Wiechec
By Chaz Muth
WASHINGTON
(CNS) — American Catholics will have an opportunity to become modern-day
missionaries during the weekend of April 29-30 by simply dropping money in a collection
plate.
That
is the weekend the Catholic Home Missions Appeal is being conducted as a second
collection in many parishes throughout the U.S. The money raised from it will
help bring the religion to people throughout the country.
Contributing
to that collection really is a way for Catholics to do missionary work without
ever leaving their home or parish, said
Richard Coll, director of Catholic Home Missions in the U.S. bishops’ Office of
National Collections.
The
annual Catholic Home Missions Appeal helps support more than 40 percent of the
dioceses and eparchies in the United States and its territories in the
Caribbean and Pacific.
These
dioceses tend to be rural with enormous territories within their borders.
Without
the subsidizes that come from the annual appeal established by the U.S.
Catholic bishops in 1998, it would be difficult or impossible to support many
of the religious programs in these regions or even some basic pastoral
functions.
It’s
why they are called mission dioceses, because they depend on missionary efforts
to help bring Catholicism to these populations in a meaningful way.
The
theme of the appeal this year is “Strengthening
the Church at Home,” Coll told Catholic News Service during an April interview.
The U.S. Catholic Church has
a long history of sending missionaries to serve people in Africa, Asia, Latin
America and Oceania, said Bishop Peter F. Christensen of
Boise, Idaho, which is a mission diocese.
Home mission dioceses in the
U.S. need the same kind of care, which is why the grants that come from the
annual appeal are so vital to Catholics in the mission dioceses, which also
include Gallup, New Mexico, and Little Rock, Arkansas, Bishop Christensen said.
“For
many dioceses, it is challenging to support ministries because of fragile
financial situations or isolated communities,” said Archbishop Paul D. Etienne
of Anchorage, Alaska, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’
Subcommittee on Catholic Home Missions. “It is through the Catholic Home
Missions Appeal that we can make a difference here at home and help our mission
dioceses offer places for people to encounter the loving and merciful Christ.”
The
Subcommittee on Catholic Home Missions in 2016 allocated more than $9 million
to 84 dioceses for programs of evangelization, Hispanic ministry, seminary
education, lay ministry formation and other essential pastoral ministries.
The U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops defines a home mission as a “diocese or parish that can’t
provide the basic pastoral services to Catholics without outside help.”
Those basic pastoral services
include Mass, the sacraments, religious education, and ministry training for
lay ministers, deacons, religious sisters and priests.
So,
Catholics who support this collection end up contributing to the pastoral outreach in the mission dioceses
in places such as Alaska, New Mexico, Idaho, the Marshall Islands, Puerto Rico
and parts of Texas.
Here’s
an example to put the struggles of a mission diocese into context.
Salt Lake City, one of
the U.S. mission dioceses, consists of 85,000 square miles, which is the entire
state of Utah, and some of the Eastern Catholic eparchies, which also are
considered Catholic home missions, cover the entire U.S. and consist of
millions of square miles.
Bishops, priests,
deacons, religious sisters and dedicated lay ministers can put 50,000 miles a
year on their cars just to reach the Catholics they are charged with providing
pastoral care to, Bishop Christensen said.
The ministry of Father
Adrian Vazquez, a priest in his diocese, illustrates the situation. He is
charged with the pastoral care of four Catholic communities in eastern Idaho, a
parish in St. Anthony and three mission stations located in Rexburg, Driggs and
Island Park.
He divides his time
between all those locations, driving hundreds of miles a week.
Sometimes the priest
relies on the kindness of his parishioners in Driggs and Island Park to put him
up for the night, since his residence is at the rectory in far off St. Anthony.
“The travel can be a
real challenge, especially in the winter when there is a lot of snow,” said
Father Vazquez, a native of Mexico. “My parishioners have to be patient with me
sometimes if I’m running behind and we just start when I arrive.”
The Diocese of Juneau,
Alaska, has a total of 10 priests who serve a geographic region that is about
the size of the state of Florida, said Bishop Edward J. Burns, then head of the Diocese of Juneau and now the bishop of Dallas.
“The communities are
small,” Bishop Burns told CNS during an interview in Juneau. “We can have just
a handful of people who gather for Mass at the kitchen table, because we don’t
have a chapel or church in some of our villages.”
The priests, deacons,
religious sisters and lay ministers say it’s important to get into the small
communities in the far reaches of these mission dioceses, not only to bring
them the sacraments, but to help them prepare for marriage, strengthen their
relationships, sometimes cope with poverty, mourn the dead and become positive
models for their children, he said.
The
U.S. mission church of the 21st century faces some of the same challenges
18th-century missionaries encountered in that the faith remains poorly
established in several parts of the country, including the Rocky Mountain
states, the South, areas along the Mexican border and in the Pacific islands,
Bishop Christensen said.
Along with
evangelization efforts, mission dioceses receive money for programs involving
faith formation, cultural diversity, strengthening marriage, repairs to
churches, prison outreach, as well as priestly and religious vocations.
In recent years, the
mission dioceses have seen an increase in religious vocations, which is
desperately needed, but that too brings its own set of challenges for
financially strapped institutions in those areas.
“To educate a
seminarian today costs an average of $37,000,” Bishop Christensen said. “That’s
not small change for a diocese that can’t support that.
“There’s a (mission)
diocese in Texas that has 23 seminarians,” he said. “Multiply that out by
$37,000 and that gets into some pretty amazing figures.”
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Follow Muth on
Twitter: @Chazmaniandevyl.
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