Grants for home missions not keeping pace with needs, says appeal

Published: 2004-04-19

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Catholic Home Missions Appeal says it plans to award almost $11.9 million in grants to financially strapped home mission dioceses this year, but the grants cannot keep pace with the growing needs of the nation's poorest dioceses. The U.S. bishops' home missions office released the figures in mid-April, shortly before the annual home missions collection was to be taken up April 24-25 in most U.S. Catholic parishes. About 90 U.S. dioceses in rural America rely on home mission grants for parish support, religious education, youth ministry and other tasks of spreading the Gospel, including work with Hispanics and other minority populations. The appeal also provides support to U.S. military chaplaincies through the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services; to Eastern-rite Catholic dioceses, some of which have only a few parishes scattered over a number of states; and to Catholic organizations such as the Catholic Network of Volunteer Service and the Southeast Hispanic Pastoral Center.

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