Bishop Solis emphasizes stewardship in new videos

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SALT LAKE CITY — Beginning this month, Bishop Oscar A. Solis will be speaking to Utah Catholics about the importance of stewardship in 12 short video messages that will be emailed out to all those who have an email address listed with their parish. The videos will also be posted on the diocesan website.

The aim of the videos is to reinvigorate stewardship in the Diocese of Salt Lake City, said Shannon Lee, director of the Office of Stewardship and Development.

The first two videos have already been sent out; they also are posted on the diocesan website, www.dioslc.org.

“People can click on their email or go to the website and get their stewardship message, then think about it, pray about it and go along with their day,” Lee said.

Stewardship is a core tenet of the Catholic faith.

“As Christian stewards, we receive God’s gifts gratefully, cultivate them responsibly, share them lovingly in justice with others, and return them with increase to the Lord,” the USCCB states on its website.

“It’s a way of life, thinking that everything that we have, everything that we are, everything that we are able to do is a gift from God,” Lee said. “We want to express our gratitude to God by being stewards of what we have and giving back to God by giving of those things to others.”

In the first message, Bishop Solis answers the question “What is stewardship?” and suggests it is a way of life where the faithful may pray for and serve their fellow man. He encourages Utah Catholics to follow a stewardship way of life. More than a checklist of things that you do, “stewardship is everything we do after we say that we believe,” the bishop said.

The second message, based on the USCCB’s pastoral letter "Stewardship – A Disciple’s Response," defines what a Christian steward is.

For his third message, Bishop Solis will speak about the stewardship of time as it relates to prayer and the 40 Days of Lent. The remaining messages will address aspects of stewardship important for Utah Catholics to ponder, Lee said.

The culmination of this campaign will be a diocesan Stewardship Day later in the year that will include presentations, breakout sessions and a keynote speaker in a hybrid format of in-person and online learning, she said.

Lee’s office will send the videos out each month to all Catholics in Utah for whom the diocese has an email address. To be included, Church members may update their information at https://www.dioslc.org/ddd/updateinfo or call Lee’s office at 801-456-9328.