DIOCESAN NEWS
04/20/07
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Everyone can give to CSA, bishop says
By Fabvienen Taylor
     JACKSON — Everyone has something to contribute to the 15th annual Catholic Service Appeal (CSA), said Bishop Joseph Latino.
     “With this year’s theme, “Share Your Blessings,” we are trying to get across to, to remind those materially blessed – in the sense of those able to live a life above the poverty level — of the needs of those less fortunate,” he said.
     “It is obvious the needs the CSA addresses each year — Catholic Charities, mission schools and parishes, Catholic evangelization, to name a few — increases, just like the cost of living increases for all of us each year,” said Bishop Latino.
     Grant requests, he said, from the areas receiving CSA monies exceed the available funds.      “The requests for funds are far more than we are able to give. We give it all out, but grants to some places do not match the real needs there.”
     Persons unable to contribute financially because of their responsibilities and obligations should not feel left out, should not feel they don’t have something to give to the CSA, the bishop said.
     “They have something very much in need,” he said. “If they can not contribute financially, we are begging people this year especially, to give the gift of prayer.”
     In his letter to Catholics in the Diocese of Jackson about the CSA collection, scheduled the weekend of May 5-6, Bishop Latino writes: “In asking you to share your blessings, I’m referring not to money alone, but also to prayer. We have all experienced the power of prayer. Prayer makes a difference! Even when we are not able to give money, we can all give sincere prayer.”
     Keeping the work of the church in their prayers, the work of the church’s ministries, is a very important gift, Bishop Latino said. “It is a gift we can not do without.”
     “In that way, people contribute with the graces they gain, not only for the success of our drive, but for the people ministered to through the CSA,” he said.
     The CSA funds the areas of Catholic Charities, evangelization, mission schools/parishes, priests’ retirement/clergy assistance, campus ministry, and seminarian education.
     The 2006 CSA received donations and pledges in the amount of $1,159, 009. To date, $1,104,965, or 95 percent, has been collected, according to George Roman, director of the Office of Stewardship for the Jackson diocese (See page 12).
     Allocations for the monies collected are: $474,973 to Catholic Charities, $125,000 each to evangelization and mission schools/parishes, $93,196 to priests’ retirement and $30,642 to clergy assistance, $87,050 to campus ministry, and $20,000 to seminarian education.
     Roman said the goal for last year’s appeal was $1,150,000. The goal for this year’s appeal is $1,200,000.
     “People are very faithful in paying their pledges,” said Roman. “We have one of the highest rates of collection of pledges (96 percent for the last two years) among similar appeals throughout the United States.”
     The state of Mississippi rates among the top 10 states in charitable giving, he said. “Each of our appeals grows by two to three percent.”
     And while Hurricanes Katrina and Rita affected donations (“rightly so,” said Roman), contributions to the CSA did not go down.
     “Last year people were most generous even following the storms,” said Bishop Latino. “The generosity we received from people in contributing to the victims of Katrina and Rita were most impressive and a cause for real pride.”
     “People really dug into their pocket books and into their wallets and for that we are most grateful.”
     In looking at the allocations, Bishop Latino said the lion’s share of funds goes to Catholic Charities, funding ministries in the Office of Family Ministry, such as marriage preparation and enrichment and natural family planning, for which there is no federal funding.
     “Those programs would necessarily fall by the wayside if it weren’t for the CSA,” he said.
     “Next comes our mission schools where, if we didn’t have the CSA, children would have to be turned away. And the mission parishes in areas like the Delta and Northeast Mississippi could not survive without the support that comes from the CSA,” Bishop Latino said.
     Costs to educate the 10 diocesan seminarians continues to climb, he said.
     “And there is our outreach on college and university campuses where many young people become aware of the church, investigate it, and join it.”
     On campus is also where the diocese looks for vocations, not only to the priesthood, but for religious sisters and brothers, he said.
     “There is also priests’ retirement which we must subsidize,” Bishop Latino said.
     “Without the CSA, these areas would simply fall by the wayside, could not survive,” he said. “So when we ask people to help us financially, by ‘us’ I mean all of the things I’ve named, all the services that look to the diocese for their budgets and for their survival.”

 

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