Collection assists missions in U.S.

On August 23-24, a collection will be taken up at all Masses throughout the Albany Diocese to benefit the Catholic Home Missions Appeal.

"Here at home in the United States," Bishop Howard J. Hubbard wrote in a letter read at Masses last weekend, "85 dioceses -- including those of the Eastern Catholic Churches -- simply are unable to provide the most basic pastoral ministries of Word, worship and service for their people without outside funding."

Money from the collection will be used as direct aid for dioceses that face unique and desperate circumstances. For example, funds will go to:

* the Diocese of Las Cruces, New Mexico, to support the 20 priests who must cover that diocese's 44 parishes and 45 missions;

* the Diocese of Fairbanks, Alaska, where priests and religious regularly travel through nearly 410,000 square miles of wilderness to reach parishioners;

* dioceses that have no Catholic college or university to support adult and young adult catechesis, such as the Diocese of Pueblo, Colorado; and

* the dioceses of Savannah, Georgia, and Biloxi, Mississippi, where Catholics are in the minority, and diocesan officials are struggling to train enough priests and women religious to minister to increasing numbers of immigrant Hispanic Catholics.

"Catholics in the U.S. home missions face challenges in living their faith that most of us in larger, more established dioceses never have to encounter," Bishop Hubbard wrote. "We are called to support the missionary efforts of our Church in the many poor, remote and rural parts of the United States. I thank you for your generous support in the past and again invite you to respond to the Catholic Home Missions Appeal. Help strengthen our Church at home."

(8/21/03) [[In-content Ad]]