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Nearly 2,000 donors make $20M St. Joseph College Seminary campaign a success
WORLD HUNGER DRIVE
Another successful World Hunger Drive
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CHARLOTTE — More than 800 parishioners from St. Matthew Church gathered to pack meals Sept. 11 for the poor during the parish’s 19th annual Monsignor McSweeney World Hunger Drive. This year’s effort involved packing 309,096 meals on site, as well as a virtual fundraising event that raised over $312,000. The food and other critical supplies are headed to the Missionaries of the Poor to distribute in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Donations are also funding sustainability projects and subsidizing education at St. Marc School in Haiti, including expanding the secondary school and starting a trade school. Through the 2021 drive, the parish also continues its financial support for a parish food program for children in Venezuela and a boys’ hostel in India, as well as providing food and funds to assist Charlotte-area homeless through food banks such as Second Harvest and Mel’s Diner. The meal-packing event was part of a number of parish-wide events in September to celebrate the parish’s 35th anniversary.
PHOTOS PROVIDED BY ST. MATTHEW CHURCH
Nearly 2,000 donors make St. Joseph’s $20M capital campaign a success
SUEANN HOWELL SENIOR REPORTER
MOUNT HOLLY — Thanks to nearly 2,000 donors, St. Joseph College Seminary has reached its $20 million capital campaign goal.
Donations and pledges raised over the past five years have been used to build the new 30,000-square-foot college seminary, a home for young men who are exploring a vocation to the diocesan priesthood while also pursuing undergraduate degrees at nearby Belmont Abbey College. The college seminary currently houses 25 seminarians and those who are responsible for their formation.
Bishop Peter Jugis blessed the new college seminary Sept. 15, 2020, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, after an official ribboncutting ceremony.
“God continues to bestow huge blessings upon the Diocese of Charlotte, and the successful completion of the seminary capital campaign is one of those blessings,” Bishop Jugis said.
“We have a very broad participation from every corner of the diocese, and beyond,” said Fredrik Akerblom, the seminary’s director of development. “When we come together, we can accomplish a lot.”
Akerblom noted that everyone involved helped to realize a complex, comprehensive plan to open the college seminary – the only one of its kind between Washington, D.C., and Miami – providing a unique opportunity for young men in the diocese discerning a call to the priesthood.
“The participation in this capital campaign was as astounding as it was encouraging. It manifests that the Church here in the Charlotte diocese takes seriously the need for strong and holy vocations to the priesthood. We have relied on God’s providence from day one of this project,” said the college seminary’s rector, Father Matthew Kauth.
St. Joseph College Seminary opened in 2016 in a former convent behind St. Ann School in Charlotte, housing an inaugural class of eight college seminarians. Over the course of four years, with a growing number of men entering the program each year, the diocese housed additional students in four separate residences near the St. Ann Church campus while accelerating the construction of a permanent home for the college seminary in Mount Holly. Enrollment has more than tripled since the program began five years ago.
With Gothic architecture and brickwork inspired by nearby Belmont Abbey, where in 1876 Benedictine monks planted the roots of Catholicism in western North Carolina, the new two-story college seminary includes 40 dorm rooms, a chapel, classroom, library, faculty offices, a refectory and kitchen, and a picturesque cloister walk where students can meditate and pray.
The program aims to nurture local vocations among the parishes and families in the Charlotte diocese, close to home. Graduates go on to major seminaries out of state to complete their priestly formation, then return for ordination to serve in the diocese’s growing parishes.
“We are taking responsibility for the men the Lord sends to us,” Father Kauth said. “I feel optimistic of what we can achieve together, pray God, in the future.”
“May we continue to serve the Lord faithfully who has been so generous with us,” Bishop Jugis said. “Special thanks to Father Kauth, our donors, and the entire team for their tremendous work on this campaign.”
Looking ahead, plans at the college seminary include the construction of a chapel large enough to host liturgies with the seminary community and up to 150 visitors. The current chapel was designed as a lecture and banquet hall and will be used as such once a new chapel is ready.
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Diocesan Support Appeal reaches 88% of goal Faithful encouraged to pledge support
CHARLOTTE — The ongoing global pandemic has created an even greater cry for assistance, and we as Catholics are charged to come to the aid of people in need across the Diocese of Charlotte through the annual Diocesan Support Appeal.
To date, the 2021 DSA has received $5.4 million – about 88 percent of its $6.2 million goal – with a few months remaining in this year’s campaign to raise the remaining $800,000.
“Love Thy Neighbor,” the theme of the 2021 Diocesan Support Appeal, is taken from Matthew 22:39: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” It illustrates one way we can strive to share God’s love with others at this difficult time.
“This is a heartfelt reminder and an opportunity to put our faith into action to help others,” Bishop Peter Jugis wrote in his DSA appeal letter to the people of the diocese.
The DSA campaign funds more than 50 ministries and programs that serve thousands of people across the diocese. Most notably, the DSA is a significant funding source for Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte for its counseling, food pantries, pregnancy support, refugee resettlement, elder ministry, Respect Life and other programs, as well as the programs and ministries of the Education Vicariate.
The DSA also supports multicultural ministries, seminarian education, the permanent diaconate, the annual Eucharistic Congress and the diocese’s housing corporation.
Catholic Charities receives 33 percent of the funds collected in the campaign. Other DSA funds are allocated to the Education Vicariate (27 percent), vocations (14 percent), multicultural ministries (14 percent), and the Eucharistic Congress and the diocesan housing ministry (7 percent). Campaign administrative costs are projected to be 5 percent.
Parishioners in all 92 parishes and missions help fund the annual DSA. Through their contributions, people across the diocese are able to join together to do the Lord’s work – works of love and service that no one person or parish can do alone.
Last year, parishioners raised $6.4 million, $230,391 over the campaign’s goal of $6.2 million.
Bishop Jugis asks parishioners to prayerfully consider making a financial contribution to the 2021 DSA, sharing our blessings from God with others “especially during these trying times of a global pandemic when the needs of many are great. I appeal to you to reflect on your own blessings and return a portion of these gifts to make a difference in our diocese.” How to support the DSA
n ONLINE: Go to www. charlottediocese.org/dsa to make a secure online donation. n TEXT: Text “DSA” to 704-389-2096 n ENVELOPE: Mail the pledge card you received in the mail or at Mass to: Diocese of Charlotte, 2021 Diocesan Support Appeal, 1123 S. Church St., Charlotte, N.C. 28203. (Pledges must be paid by Dec. 31, 2021.)
Catholic Charities seeks help housing Afghan evacuees in Charlotte, Asheville
CATHOLIC NEWS HERALD
CHARLOTTE — Amid a national housing shortage particularly severe in North Carolina, the Diocese of Charlotte’s Catholic Charities agency is working overtime to find homes for an expected surge of refugees heading to Charlotte and Asheville in coming months – including roughly 240 Afghan evacuees fleeing their war-torn homeland.
Catholic Charities’ Refugee Resettlement program needs hundreds of apartments and rental homes throughout Mecklenburg and Buncombe counties where families can settle as case workers connect them to health, employment, and other services outlined by the federal government. Some
refugees served as interpreters or provided other assistance to the U.S. military during the war in Afghanistan – among tens of thousands of Afghans evacuated when the U.S. military ended operations there last month.
The agency needs independent rentals ranging in size from one to three bedrooms – not room or house sharing – and is flexible on length of leases.
A severe lack of affordable housing has plagued many North Carolina communities and in March, the National Low-Income Housing Coalition found a U.S. shortage of nearly 7 million affordable and available rental homes for extremely lowincome renters.
“We have never seen rental housing so tight – we really need help from the community to secure homes for these individuals and families coming from chaotic circumstances with little more than the clothes they’re wearing,” said Sandy Buck, who heads Catholic Charities’ refugee resettlement program, with offices in Charlotte and Asheville. “Much of the housing we have relied on for years is not available, so we are praying people who can help will reach out in this crisis.”
While financial and operating agreements are not yet finalized, Catholic Charities expects to resettle 200 Afghan evacuees in Charlotte and 40 in Asheville over the next several months – in addition to an anticipated increase of refugee families from elsewhere around the world.
After a sharp decline during the Trump administration, the number of refugees being resettled by the diocese was already expected to rise beginning this fall. In addition to Afghan evacuees, Charlotte is slated to resettle 400 refugees and Asheville 150 over the next year.
Bishop Peter Jugis has lauded the work of the Church in resettling individuals and families from places of strife.
“As Catholics we respond to the Biblical call to welcome the stranger – it is an act of love and hope…” Jugis previously told the Catholic News Herald. “We have decades of experience in settling thousands of families fleeing persecution in their native country. These people have made a rich contribution to the life and culture of western North Carolina. I join with my brother bishops in the effort to work vigorously to ensure that refugees are humanely welcomed without sacrificing our security or our core values as Americans.”
Catholic Charities works in partnership with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees fleeing war, political upheaval, or religious, economic or ethnic persecution.
It’s unclear exactly when the Afghan evacuees will arrive, which could begin in coming days. Many are already in the U.S., housed temporarily on military bases as background checks are being completed and resettlement agencies prepare. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is conducting COVID-19, health and security screenings, and service agreements are still being drafted between the federal government and the USCCB, which runs the largest refugee resettlement program in the United States.
The diocese typically resettles between 300 and 400 refugees each year, many of whom have ties in the U.S. or who have U.S. sponsors.
Catholic Charities provides refugees the individualized assistance they need to start new lives in the United States – including housing assistance, job training, counseling help, school registration, health care referrals, community and cultural orientation, budgeting and financial education, interpretation services, referrals to English classes, and more.
The guidance helps refugees acculturate and become selfsufficient, productive members of their community. They pay taxes, re-pay travel expenses, and most adults find jobs within three to five months, ultimately becoming financially independent and homeowners, Catholic Charities’ case workers note.
In anticipation of the refugee arrivals, Catholic Charities is adding three case workers in Charlotte and Asheville.
Since 1975, the local agency has resettled more than 14,000 refugees representing 61 nationalities.
CNS | EVELYN HOCKSTEIN, REUTERS Afghan refugees at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., embrace family members Sept. 2, before boarding buses that will take them to a processing center. The Charlotte diocese is preparing to welcome 240 Afghan evacuees to Charlotte and Asheville in coming months.
How can you help?
Most critical is the need for hundreds of independent and affordable rental homes and apartments in Charlotte and Asheville, for which Catholic Charities provides flexible terms and reliable lease payments.
Catholic Charities also encourages financial donations and family sponsorship to aid its refugee resettlement work. Contributions can be made securely online at www.ccdoc.org or mailed to Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte, 1123 S. Church St., Charlotte, N.C. 28203.
Donations of furniture and household items, as well as volunteers to pick up donations and help set up apartments, are also welcome.
For information on how to help, call 704-370-3262.
Stand in solidarity with migrants and refugees this week
The 2021 World Day of Migrants and Refugees, celebrated each year on the last Sunday of September, will take place Sunday, Sept. 26. The theme for this year’s celebration, chosen by Pope Francis, is “Towards an ever wider ‘we’” – a theme chosen to encourage focus on greater communion and unity among all people. In a letter announcing this year’s theme, Pope Francis emphasizes “this focus calls on us to ensure that ‘after all this, we will think no longer in terms of ‘them’ and ‘those,’ but only ‘us’” (“Fratelli tutti,” 35).
In solidarity with the Vatican, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ celebration of the 2021 National Migration Week has been taking place this week – culminating with the World Day of Migrants and Refugees on Sunday. Let us take some time this week to reflect on how we can better welcome, protect, promote and integrate migrants living in our midst. How can we counter the globalization of indifference that affects us all, to some degree or another? What policies can we promote that will affirm the dignity of migrants and better secure the common good? How do we work more fully to promote a Church for all? Learn more at www.justiceforimmigrants.org.
“This is the ideal of the new Jerusalem, where all peoples are united in peace and harmony, celebrating the goodness of God and the wonders of creation. To achieve this ideal, however, we must make every effort to break down the walls that separate us and, in acknowledging our profound interconnection, build bridges that foster a culture of encounter. Today’s migration movements offer an opportunity for us to overcome our fears and let ourselves be enriched by the diversity of each person’s gifts. Then, if we so desire, we can transform borders into privileged places of encounter, where the miracle of an ever wider ‘we’ can come about.” — Excerpt from Pope Francis’ 2021 World Day of Migrants and Refugees message
