Dear Christ the King Family,
This weekend at our Masses here at Christ the King, we will talk a little about the Annual Bishop’s Appeal. For families that are registered at Christ the King, a packet will be mailed to your home address with all of the pertinent information and additional pledge cards can be picked up by anyone from the welcome desk in the narthex starting this weekend and for the following weeks to come. Each year the Annual Bishop’s Appeal raises money for support of Diocesan Operations and Ministries—in other words, it is an important way that all of the parishes come together to support the Local Church, the Diocese, we all belong to. Our Diocese plays an important and often unseen role in enabling all parishes and schools to fulfill their missions with services and support that would not make logistical or financial sense to replicate at each parish or school location individually.
The main activities funded by The Annual Bishop’s Appeal are:
Catholic Youth Formation and Education – $2.346 million
Priest and Seminarian Education and Retirement – $1.010 million
The Central Offices and Ministries – $1.243 million
Assistance for Catholic Charities and Parishes and Agencies in need – $725,000
The Appeal provides about 50% of the annual funding for the central offices of the Diocese and the Diocesan goal this year is $5,325,465. Each parish is assigned a proportional share of this total as a parish goal. Last year, our parish goal was $177,973.00. Thanks to the generosity of 1,256 our parish families were able to raise $166,356.65, but short of reaching our goal. A unique feature of our Diocesan appeal is that when a parish raises funds exceeding the parish goal, all the overage is returned to the parish. Thanks to your generosity in years past at Christ the King, we’ve done an amazing job at exceeding our goal and those exceeding funds that go back to our parish play an important part in supporting our operations and projects here at Christ the King!
I know this is not always the most exciting stuff to read, though it remains important. More than anything else, my strong encouragement is to fill out your pledge card and return it—if you can give at this time, wonderful! If you cannot give monetarily at this time, even just filling out the pledge card and noting that you’re offering prayers for the Bishop’s Appeal is valuable in and of itself (and it will take you off of the mailing list for future reminders in the upcoming months). We are not asking for equal giving, we are asking for every family to prayerfully discern if they can financially support the work of the Diocese and the Parish in this important annual collection. We are reminded in our Gospel this weekend that our discipleship will always ask something of ourselves and it matters what we put into our response to follow Our Lord. Despite our human weaknesses and imperfections, God in His goodness chose to take up the Cross for our salvation. In His eyes, the Communion of Love he has freed us to share in was worth the cost then and always. May we continue to grow in the solidarity of Communion with God and with our neighbors across our Local Church!
In Christ,
Fr. David
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