By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-12-13 21:01:21 | Updated at 2024-12-13 23:44:37
2 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has announced the allocation of nearly $19.5 million in grants, distributed through its Committee on National Collections, to support a wide range of pastoral and social initiatives.
Funded by the generosity of parishioners through five annual collections, the grants’ aim is to assist impoverished and marginalized communities in the United States and abroad.
The Catholic Home Missions Appeal provided more than $7.2 million to 73 dioceses and eparchies in the U.S. and its territories. This funding helps sustain pastoral activities in areas where Catholics are too few in number or lack resources to maintain ministries.
Grants included nearly $400,000 for diocesan staff training and $75,000 for participation in bishops’ conferences on youth protection and pro-life activities. Additionally, a special $79,000 grant funded scholarships for seminarians from mission dioceses, highlighting a focus on fostering vocations.
Internationally, the Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe awarded more than $3.7 million to support pastoral and humanitarian efforts in 28 countries. In Ukraine, a $30,000 grant will aid religious sisters and priests in assisting displaced war victims, including those sheltering in convents and monasteries.
In Slovakia, another $30,000 was designated to sustain a family ministry that addresses crisis pregnancies, domestic violence, and other challenges in a region severely affected by government cuts to social services.
The Subcommittee on the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), which is the USCCB’s official anti-poverty program, approved and awarded 93 grants totaling nearly $2.3 million. As CatholicVote previously reported, the CCHD “has been a source of controversy in the past for partnering with organizations that openly contradict Catholic Church teaching,” such as groups that promote abortion.
At the time of publication, the list of the 2024-2025 CCHD-awarded grant recipients is not publicly available. The list of CCHD-awarded grant recipients for the 2023-2024 grant year can be found here.
The USCCB Secretariat of Justice and Peace internally received three grants amounting to over $275,000 in support of the USCCB Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism, and the Secretariat’s educational efforts about the causes of poverty, according to the USCCB announcement.
In Latin America, $4.3 million in grants supported initiatives such as prison ministry and disaster recovery. One notable grant of $25,000 went to the Archdiocese of Guayaquil, Ecuador, to bring faith and hope to prisoners in Littoral Prison, one of the world’s most violent penitentiaries. In Cuba, a grant of $89,400 is being used to rebuild a 19th-century church damaged by Hurricane Francine, helping preserve the Catholic faith in a country marked by decades of anti-religious repression.
The Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa allocated $1.05 million for projects, including a $25,000 grant to combat human trafficking in Eastern Africa. This initiative will help coordinate efforts to prevent trafficking, protect victims, and prosecute offenders in regions heavily impacted by this modern form of slavery.
