Overseas appeal cares for needy

This weekend, Albany Catholics are being exhorted to serve "Jesus in disguise" by contributing to the American Bishops' Overseas Appeal.

The annual fundraiser supports four Catholic agencies whose goal is to build the international social ministry of the Church and improve the living conditions of the less fortunate:

* the U.S. bishop's Migration and Refugee Services,

* Catholic Relief Services (CRS),

* the Holy Father's Relief Fund, and

* the U.S. bishops' Department of Social Development and World Peace.

Those agencies provide relief to victims of war and natural disaster; advocate for aid and resettlement of refugees; provide humanitarian assistance to children in Israel and Palestine; and support work in hundred of emergency relief programs in countries across the world.

Most recently, CRS, the overseas aid arm of American Catholics, has begun to offer emergency assistance to those affected by the coup in Haiti.

Also benefiting from the fund are refugees like Richard and Josephine Coker, newlyweds who fled the violent civil war in Sierra Leone; Setat, an Egyptian widow who used a loan from the CRS Village Banking Program to start a small grocery store to support her family; and medical staffers working to combat the skyrocketing occurrence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa. The fund also helps legislative efforts to end these problems.

In a pulpit letter read at parishes last weekend, Bishop Howard J. Hubbard said that "the generosity of Catholics for the American Bishops' Overseas Appeal is so critical to the work of the Church in caring for the vulnerable among us -- victims of war, persecution and poverty. I am grateful for your support in the past, and I ask for your continued support and prayers in the coming year as we help our less fortunate brothers and sisters."

(3/18/04) [[In-content Ad]]