BY GRETCHEN KEISER

An archdiocese that has greater needs every year, and a growing population, looks to its own people for special help.

Only through one Archdiocesan Annual Appeal does the archdiocese of Atlanta have the funds to carry on its basic works of service, education charity and ministry.

For these urgent tasks, Bishop James P. Lyke, OFM, is asking Catholics of the archdiocese to contribute $2.2 million in gifts that may be pledged over a period as long as the next 12 months.

The Archdiocesan Annual Appeal, that was just launched, will continue in its quest for pledges and gifts through March 3.

To bring the full message of the Appeal home, a special newspaper with facts, a financial table, a question-and-answer discussion with Bishop Lyke, and with other financial officers of the archdiocese, and relevant material on each department and office of the archdiocese, has been sent to every family registered in parishes or missions in north Georgia.

Over the next month, each individual will also receive further material from the archdiocese, from Bishop Lyke, and from his or her pastor, explaining the needs, the format of the Appeal, and suggesting gifts.

To contribute to the Appeal, Catholics will receive pledge cards and respond by mail directly to the archdiocese.

Individual parishes will be credited for each donation coming from their parishioners. Each parish and mission has an individual goal determined to be its fair share of the total archdiocesan need of $2.2 million.

Together they will fund a spectrum of critical needs in the following areas: Catholic education; campus ministry for Catholics on college campuses throughout Georgia; ministry to Hispanics; ministry to Black Catholics; support for inner-city Catholic schools; aid to families in crisis and to the pro-life office; educational support to seminarians who are future archdiocesan priests; subsidies to new or struggling parishes; undergirding support to Catholic Social Services, which serves the aged, refugees and immigrants, Hispanics, families and individuals needing counseling, and crisis pregnancy care for women. The Annual Appeal will also raise $600,000 to create a fund for the future growth needs of this rapidly expanding archdiocese.

All materials in the campaign are bilingual in Spanish and English, emphasizing the growing Hispanic community already present in the archdiocese and also stressing the fact that a hidden population of Hispanics, many of them Catholic, exists in the archdiocese and is underserved because it is largely unrecognized and unregistered in parishes.

In a letter that will be sent to every Catholic, Bishop Lyke stresses that the needs of the departments and offices are urgent. “Every department of the Archdiocese is understaffed, and our personnel is overtaxed,” he says. “Catholics from other parts of the country literally flood our parishes, with many parishes growing at the rate of 10 to 40 members per month.”

“Unofficial estimates indicate that we already have between 150,000 and 200,000 Hispanic people adding to our urban, suburban and rural parishes – most of whom are poor,” he said. “Thus, while the figure of 175,000 Catholics is an accurate one in reference to those registered in our parishes, it is more accurate to state that we already have as many as 300,000 or more Catholics. If such population trends continue, our Catholic population will number between 500,000 and 700,000 in the year 2000. What a wonderful opportunity, challenge and blessing for the Catholic Church of North Georgia.”

The recession, which is impacting everyone, makes the archdiocese all the more dependent on the success of the appeal.

Recognizing that sacrifices are made in order to support the Church, and that in this economy sacrifices will be greater, archdiocesan officials also point out that every gift, of whatever size, helps to achieve the goal.

While one person’s gift may not seem sizable to him or her, combined with the gifts of 57,000 other families in the Atlanta archdiocese, the $2.2 million goal can be reached.