Collection aids home missions

That's the situation in parts of Alaska, but Catholics in the Albany Diocese can help to improve such conditions in other dioceses in the United States and its dependencies by contributing to the 1999 Catholic Home Missions Appeal, which will be taken up in parishes August 21-22.

This is the second year of the appeal, which provides funding for priests to celebrate Mass in remote parishes as often as possible, supports religious education programs and enables even small parishes to keep their doors open.

The theme of this year's Appeal is "Strengthening the Church at Home."

Coordinated by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on the Home Missions, the campaign extends and strengthens the presence of the Church by helping to provide basic pastoral services. Such assistance is essential to isolated churches of Cheyenne, Wyoming; Appalachian Mountain parishioners in Lexington, Kentucky; border parishes in Brownsville, Texas; and remote parishes in Pago Pago and American Samoa.

The Appeal funds diocesan evangelization efforts, parish religious education programs, seminarian education, lay ministry training, and the pastoral care of growing ethnic and migrant communities.

In a letter read at Masses, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard asked that parishioners give to this year's Home Missions Appeal so that Catholics in needy dioceses may be able to worship as they should.

"I am well aware of and thankful for the magnitude of your ongoing response to the plight and needs of others," he writes. "Once again, I urge your generous and compassionate support of the pastoral and other needs of our Catholic sisters and brothers in our home missions, many of whom often experience the hard effects of poverty and a sense of isolation in their daily living."

(08-19-99) [[In-content Ad]]