Diocese's home missions receive $75,000 grant

Intermountain Catholic

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SALT LAKE CITY – The Subcommittee on Catholic Home Missions (CHM) of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Office of National Collections has awarded the Diocese of Salt Lake City a 2013 grant of $75,000.

In November CHM announced the approval of over $8.4 million in grant funding to aid in evangelization, religious education, ministry training and other support in 84 mission dioceses across the United States.

"The grant monies are needed to carry out the work of the Church in mission territories such as our diocese," said Michael Lee, pastoral operations director of the Diocese of Salt Lake City.

The home mission dioceses across the U.S. that received part of the funding grant face great and diverse challenges either because of the distance of their location or because the poverty of the population they serve. CHM supports primarily missions in dioceses that are unable to offer their communities basic pastoral ministries without assistance.

"Surprisingly, the Catholic Church is poorly established in many parts of our country, especially Appalachia, the South, the Southwest along the Mexican border, the Rocky Mountain states, Alaska, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and remote island chains like the Marshalls and the Carolinas in the Pacific. Generally speaking, the home missions are everywhere Catholics are few and the Church is fragile," reads in the USCCB home page.

"Each year we are presented with the opportunity to share the generous gifts of the nation’s Catholics with mission dioceses here at home. Most people are surprised to learn that over 40 percent of the dioceses in the United States receive our support," said Bishop Michael W. Warfel of Great Falls-Billings, Mont., and chairman of the subcommittee in a statement released by USCCB. "We hear regularly from the bishops of home mission dioceses how essential our funding is to their ability to provide the sacraments and spread the Gospel."

The grants are financed through the annual fundraising campaign known as the Catholic Home Missions Appeal and support such pastoral services as evangelization activities; religious education; training for priests, deacons, religious sisters and brothers, and laity, as well as ministry with ethnic groups. The maximum grant any archdiocese or diocese, religious institute, or organization may receive is $125,000.

In the Diocese of Salt Lake City the grant funds will be used for the following areas, Lee said:

- Marriage preparation and enrichment, natural family planning

- Clergy ongoing formation

- Seminary education and vocations

- Missions.

Many of the missions in Utah celebrate Mass only once a week and are served by visiting priests who drive many miles to minister to them.

The national date for the Catholic Home Missions Appeal is the fourth Sunday in April.

In the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City there are 19 missions all over the state. The missions are: Santa Ana, Tremonton; Saint Florence, Huntsville; Saint Lawrence, Heber City; Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, Fort Duchesne; Holy Spirit, Duchesne; San Isidro, Elberta; Saint Jude, Ephraim; Saint John Bosco, Delta; San Juan Diego, Gunnison; San Rafael, Huntington; Saint Michael the Archangel, Green River; Holy Family, Fillmore; Our Lady of the Light, Beaver; Saint Anthony of the Desert, Torrey; Sacred Heart, La Sal; Saint Gertrude, Panguitch; Saint Sylvestre, Escalante; Saint Dominic, Bryce Canyon; and San Pablo, Beryl Junction.