SPRING 2022
Image: Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s ecclesial coat of arms bears the motto, “Lord, to whom shall we go?” — the theme for the Cardinal’s Annual Stewardship Appeal for 2022.THESE DAYS, the word stewardship is not used very often. Merriam-Webster defines it as “the office, duties, and obligations of a steward,” and, somewhat more helpfully, as “the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care.”
So, if a steward takes care of something that is not the steward’s property, why is the word stewardship sitting in the middle of the Cardinal’s Annual Stewardship Appeal? Isn’t the Church asking us to sacrifice something that is our property – namely, our money?
“For me, stewardship is a covenant with God, the giver,” explains Fr. Peter Mushi, pastor of St. Cecilia and Holy Agony Church in upper Manhattan. “In the covenant relationship, I will manage His gifts as a good steward. It is about the gifts. All is from God and all goes back to God.”
In other words, everything we have is a gift from God. Our job is to manage His gifts with care. We must each steward what has been entrusted to us, and repay God by giving to others.
“BROADLY SPEAKING, the biblical foundation of stewardship is prayer, service, and alms-giving. The financial piece – alms-giving – is just one element, but it’s an important one,” says Juliette Picciano, director of the Cardinal’s Appeal. “We think of the appeal as part of a person’s broader commitment to the Church. A person’s first financial commitment should always be to their parish – but we do belong to the universal Church. The appeal supports the broader mission of the Church in New York.”
The needs served by the Cardinal’s Appeal are vast and wide-ranging. The overall fundraising goal for 2022 is $21 million, and contributions are directed to five main areas. The first of these is the support of financially vulnerable parishes, which will account for 48% of spending. “Many of our parishes cannot meet their operating budget on their own through the offertory,” Picciano explains, “especially in places that are economically disadvantaged. We have to provide the support that those places need.”
The second main area of spending is charitable outreach and pastoral support (28%), which covers archdiocesan ministries like Catholic Charities and ArchCare, as well as offices like Family Life, Respect Life, Youth Faith Formation, Black Ministry, Hispanic Ministry, and others that support the parishes and the faithful in our region. This translates into meals, shelter, and other help for the poor and marginalized, as well as programs like marriage preparation, parenting help, counseling, and other services. “Because the archdiocese is so large, it’s hard sometimes to articulate how the appeal affects individuals,” Picciano says. “But when you drill down to see how people’s lives are being touched, it’s very real.”
The third focus area (14%) covers evangelization, communication, and Catholic education, supporting Catholic schools and the many ways the archdiocese gets the word out about Jesus and the Church. Finally, formation of new parish priests, principally through the facilities at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, and care for retired parish priests round out the allocations at 5% each.
THE ARCHDIOCESAN APPEAL has evolved significantly since its inception in the mid-20th century, both in its mission and its methods. Fr. Peter Madori, now administrator at St. Joseph in Wurtsville, recalls that donations were still being collected door to door in the late 1960s, when the annual fundraiser was called the Catholic Charities Appeal and supported a narrower set of programs. By the time the newly named Cardinal’s Annual Stewardship Appeal was officially launched in 1979, a new technology, the phone-a-thon, emerged and led to increased giving. It didn’t last. By the early 2000s, caller ID and voice mail had made phone-a-thons obsolete. Mailings and in-pew envelopes became the norm, until Internet giving started catching on in the past couple of years.
While the technology has changed, the fundamental approach has remained steady for nearly two millennia. “This way of giving, outside of your immediate local community, has been a part of the practice of our faith since its beginning,” Picciano observes. “St. Paul went around talking to various communities, taking up collections to help other places. They gave because St. Paul was asking them to, and because they trusted him that there was a need.”
“It is a mission to go beyond the self and share with others our gifts of time, talent, and treasure,” Fr. Mushi says. “This mission of sharing becomes a way of life.”
For more information or to contribute, visit cardinalsappeal.org.