The effort, dubbed “Our Campaign for the
Church Alive,” marks the first time the diocese has done a diocese-wide
appeal, said Bishop David Zubik. The diocese includes 204 parishes in
six counties.
Zubik said major donors, with whom he has been meeting quietly since March, have committed more than $25 million to the appeal.
“They’ve been very generous,” Zubik said, adding that the diocese will begin the public portion of the campaign later this year.
The appeal began even as the diocese pared
staff and cut costs this year to balance its $21 million budget. That
followed a decade of school closings and parish mergers caused by a more
than 20 percent decline in membership, to about 635,000.
“I think it’s always the case that you can
look at the glass as half full or half empty. The purpose of (the
campaign) is not to stock the treasury of the diocese, but to do the
things we need to do as a church. People are looking at ways to make our
church grow and to reach out to people,” Zubik said.
He said plans for the appeal — which will
focus on parish needs and outreach to schools, the elderly and needy —
grew out of months of meetings with clergy and more than 300 lay
leaders.
The public portion of the campaign will get under way in 10 “pilot” parishes, which will lead the effort.
The Rev. David Taylor, pastor of St. Charles
Lwanga parish in Homewood, one of the pilot parishes, said he has not
received specifics from the diocese.
“But I’m very optimistic. I think it’s a good
thing for the parish and the diocese. I think it’s going to be very
successful, and our parish will be 100 percent behind it,” he said.
A campaign update circulated to parish leaders
and obtained by the Tribune-Review suggested the appeal will ask
parishes to commit to a goal of raising 175 percent of average
offerings, to be paid over a five-year period.
Diocese spokesman Bob Lockwood said the diocese will not send bills to the parishes.
“What a parish will give is whatever it gives.
The parishes are not going to be dunned. ... This is not a campaign to
build buildings. The majority of the money will go back to the
parishes,” Lockwood said.
The report said $50 million, or 40 cents of
every dollar raised, will go to parishes for local needs.
Other major
allocations include need-based scholarships for Catholic school
students; start-up subsidies for Cardinal Wuerl North Catholic High
School, under construction in Cranberry; an endowment to serve single
mothers; and funds for health services for the uninsured.
In the Greensburg diocese, which has 157,000
Catholics in 85 parishes, officials collected $55 million in a 2009
diocese-wide appeal, exceeding their $45 million goal.