"The Great Vocation Challenge"

Let me share some very encouraging news with you. According to our current data, there are over 400 seminarians studying for the priesthood in America's home missions!

Four hundred young adult and adult men are preparing to become missioners to places in our country where people are longing to be fed on the Word of God and the Eucharist, and to experience a community of faith that is gifted by the spiritual and pastoral presence of a priest among them.

We know how great the need is. I have just returned from the Diocese of Brownsville in the southernmost part of Texas, where I discovered the ratio of priest-to-laypeople in this diocese is one of the highest in our country - 1 for every 8,065 Catholics!

From Alabama to Arizona to Washington state - throughout America's poorest counties - our mission dioceses have asked Catholic Extension donors to help their future priests prepare to serve in some of the poorest parts of our land.

Nevertheless, this wonderful news brings along with it a daunting challenge. Presently it costs approximately $25,000 a year to train and educate a future priest, and it takes minimally four to six years to prepare for ordination. In aggregate, the poorest dioceses of the United States need to raise more than $10 million dollars a year to educate their seminarians.

It is ironic that the more successful the dioceses are in encouraging vocations to the priesthood, the more their budgets are stretched in meeting the many demands they face as the poorest places of the Church in our country.

That's where we come in. You and I, the family of Catholic Church Extension Society, have the capacity to raise $10 million this year. There are 100,000 members of our Catholic Extension family. If every one of us took responsibility in the month of March to donate or to raise just $100, we can erase this burden from our poorest dioceses in just one month!

At the same time we would have the honor and joy of bringing 400 young men a year closer to ordination.

For those who can give more, we need you. For those who can give some but not all, we need you. Perhaps you could even ask a few friends or family members to pool their donations with you to increase your gift.

In the present presidential political campaigns, tens of millions of dollars are being raised on small amounts of $25, $50 and $100 from individuals across the country. This shows what a grass-roots effort can do. For the future of the Gospel in America, can we not do the same?
I firmly believe that the Catholic Extension family of donors can take on this challenge facing our poorest dioceses. By banding together, we can create our own grass-roots movement to shape the future of the Church in a powerful way and bring a new generation of priests to the mission Church in America.

Consider the legacy that your gift will mean to the future of the Mission Church. I ask you as part of the Catholic Extension family to respond generously to this effort and make your safe and secure donation now. Thank you.

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