Collection aids missions around U.S.

In the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, there are 8,880 Catholics per active priest; in Knoxville, Tenn., less than two percent of the population is Catholic; and the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, sprawls across 50 counties in rural, poverty-stricken Appalachia.

Those are the people served by the Catholic Home Missions Appeal, which will be taken up in parishes of the Albany Diocese on August 26-27.

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, home missions are found in the "scattered and isolated churches of the Appalachian mountains, west Texas, the deep South, and the islands of the Caribbean and the Pacific."

Contributions help fund diocesan evangelization efforts, parish religious education programs, seminarian education, lay ministry training, and the pastoral care of growing ethnic and migrant communities.

Seventy dioceses that cannot support themselves are supported by the Home Missions Appeal. Donations go to places like:

* the Diocese of Pago Pago in American Samoa, where nine parishes serve 9,000 people and Church personnel need to publish liturgical material in the Samoan language;

* the Diocese of Baker, Oregon, where the bishop drives 35,000 miles a year to visit parishes; and

* the Diocese of Cheyenne, Wyoming, the biggest geographic diocese in the country, where 47 priests serve 50,000 Catholics who live in towns scattered across 100,000 square miles.

More than 92 cents out of every donated dollar goes directly to such missions.

"The appeal has been a great success," said Bishop Howard J. Hubbard in a pulpit letter read to Catholics at Masses last weekend. "At the same time, the national economic slowdown and troubles in the Church have eroded the financial position of mission dioceses, which had scant reserves to begin with.

"Parishioners will have the opportunity to help their fellow Catholics in rural America live out their faith under difficult circumstances. I am grateful for your continued generosity."

(8/25/05) [[In-content Ad]]