2019-20 Catholic Stewardship Appeal
This year's CSA ties discipleship to gratitude and service
The people of this diocese are being called to stop, take stock of the abundant array of God’s gifts, and respond in gratitude by committing to serve Him while caring for one another.
That is the emphasis of this year’s Catholic Stewardship Appeal (CSA).
The CSA is an annual campaign encouraging Catholics to commit to supporting their parishes while making a gift or pledge to help pay for essential diocesan services in the upcoming fiscal year.
All 106 parishes and missions and their local communities benefit from these services, which include youth ministry, marriage and family-life support and promotion, vocation work, ongoing formation for permanent deacons, guidance and oversight for Catholic schools, communications, and advocacy in the public square, ministry to growing local communities of Hispanic Catholics, and coordination of charitable services through Catholic Charities of Central and Northern Missouri.
Bishop W. Shawn McKnight invites all Catholics to join him, his priests and fellow parishioners in sustaining the mission of the diocese.
Moreover, an offering to the CSA is a tangible expression and manifestation of faith, gratitude and discipleship.
“We do not give to a need but out of a need to give,” said Bishop McKnight.
This year’s CSA theme is: “As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards,” (1 Peter 4:10).
“God has given each of us so much,” the bishop stated. “His desire is for all of us to cultivate those gifts according to our best efforts, and make a meaningful offering back to Him, in order for others to be drawn into a deeper relationship with Him and His Church.”
This year’s diocesan goal for the CSA is $2,450,000, with each parish having a set goal, based on its ability to give.
Once again, this year’s CSA funding formula highlights the crucial relationship among individual parishes and the diocese as a whole. Once the amount allocated to sustaining the work of the diocese has been assured, every parish that achieves its parish goal will have 10 percent of that amount returned to that parish.
This is an important step in Bishop McKnight’s vision of moving toward a parish-based stewardship model for the diocese, in which parishioners commit to tithing at the parish level out of their need to give, and the parishes then tithe to support diocesan and other ministries.
“With our lives, our prayers and the best use of our temporal goods, let us continue to thank God, Who gives us all good things through His Son,” he said. “Let us keep working together to announce His Good News in all facets of our lives, and watching with awe as He continues to bless and multiply our efforts.”
He noted that none of the money given to the CSA has been or will be spent on payments related to sexual abuse.
More information about this year’s CSA can be found online at www.diojeffcity.org/catholic-stewardship-appeal-2020/
