Catholic Home Missions
Pontifical Mission Societies Catholic Relief Services Catholic Home Missions
Mission Cooperative Program Mandeville Twinning Project
Catholic Home Missions helps build community within the Church and works for the common good of Catholics in less prosperous regions of the US.
For information click on www.usccb.org/hm or e-mail: mailto:homemissions@usccb.org
The Catholic Home Missions Appeal is the last weekend in April. Thank you for your generous support!
Did You Know?
In home mission diocese throughout the United States, there is a serious need for priestly formation in order to build vibrant parish communities. The cost to educate one seminarian in a home mission diocese is roughly $30,000. In an average grant cycle, 18-20% of the funds collected for the Catholic Home Missions Appeal go toward seminarian education. Last year, the Appeal enabled the home mission diocese of Biloxi to support 100% of the expenses of educating 12 seminarians. These future priests will be invaluable, as 11 priests are currently retired and several more are eligible for retirement in the next few years.
In home mission diocese throughout the United States, there is a serious need for priestly formation in order to build vibrant parish communities. The cost to educate one seminarian in a home mission diocese is roughly $30,000. In an average grant cycle, 18-20% of the funds collected for the Catholic Home Missions Appeal go toward seminarian education. Last year, the Appeal enabled the home mission diocese of Biloxi to support 100% of the expenses of educating 12 seminarians. These future priests will be invaluable, as 11 priests are currently retired and several more are eligible for retirement in the next few years.
Home mission dioceses often struggle with poverty among parishioners, geographical isolation, and other circumstances that challenge the practice of the faith and the funding of essential pastoral services.
For more than 10 years, the Catholic Home Mission Appeal has requested the help of the US parishioners to strengthen their Church. In this time frame, Catholic Home Missions has allocated more than $100 million to home mission dioceses for evangelization, religious education, training for ministry, and other pastoral needs.
Thank you for your support of the Catholic Home Missions Appeal. You are truly making a difference right here in the Church in the United States.
There are 88 home mission dioceses in the United States. These dioceses are unable to fund basic and essential pastoral works such as catechesis, seminary formation, and lay leadership training, and are unable to attend to the unique needs of the communities they serve.
The Catholic Home Missions Appeal helps meet the faith needs of Catholics in the missions. It supports education of priests, deacons, religious sisters and lay people, so that the Eucharist and the word of God can nourish Catholics. It supports religious education, so Catholics can expand their knowledge of the faith and hand it down to the next generation. It helps small parishes stay alive!
A "Home Mission" diocese - such as in the Deep South, Appalachia, and the Rocky Mountains - is characterized by a lack of resources to provide basic pastoral care (Evangelization, religious education, ministry training) for their fatihful. Home mission parishes often struggle with priest shortages, parishioner poverty, unemployment, difficult or isolated terrain, religious hostility, and other circumstances that impact the practicing of the faith.