$4.1 Million Approved in Grants to the Church in Latin America
Including Emergency Disaster Assistance and Pastoral Care for Migrants
June 21, 2018
WASHINGTON—The
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Subcommittee on the Church in
Latin America awarded $3.39 million in funding in the form of 206 grants to
support the pastoral work of the Church in Latin America and the Caribbean, and
$580,950 in three grants funding emergency disaster and recovery assistance to
areas affected by the Mexican Earthquakes and Hurricanes Matthew (2016), Irma
and Maria (2017). In addition, the Subcommittee approved a design-phase request
of $150,000 for the eventual reconstruction of the national major seminary
devastated by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The grants were approved at the
Subcommittee's meeting on June 11 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Projects that
received funding for pastoral activities include the following:
- Haiti and Uruguay: Support for several families to
participate in the 9th World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Ireland,
August 21-26, 2018.
- Nicaragua and El Salvador: Support for several
delegates from the National Commission of Youth Ministry to participate in
World Youth Day in Panama City, Panama, January 22-27, 2019.
- Mexico: Support for “The Year of Mexican Youth -- A
Moment of Grace,” a national event that will include a celebration at the
Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe with an anticipated 13,000 participants.
- Brazil: Pastoral support for Venezuelan refugees. This
project will help implement and develop a migrant ministry in the diocese
of Roraima and provide pastoral support to the recent influx of Venezuelan
migrants to the area. The project aims to welcome and orient vulnerable
migrants upon arrival, assist with access to services, provide language
instruction and job training, strengthen women’s groups, support the
migrants’ faith lives, and form local pastoral leaders and parishes to
assist with immigrant integration.
“Through the
Collection for the Church in America, Catholics from the United States express
their solidarity with the people of Latin America and the Caribbean. I thank
them for their generosity and am humbled by the impact their support has on
countless lives in the region, particularly for young people and those living
in areas ravaged by recent natural disasters,” said Bishop Eusebio Elizondo,
auxiliary bishop of Seattle and chairman of the Subcommittee on the Church in
Latin America.
Other areas of
funding include lay leadership training, catechesis, seminarian and religious
formation, environmental justice, prison ministry, and youth and family
ministries. Grants are funded by the annual Collection for the Church in Latin
America, taken in many dioceses across the U.S. on the fourth Sunday in
January. The emergency and reconstruction grants are awarded from the special
collections the USCCB calls for after a disaster.
The Subcommittee
on the Church in Latin America oversees the collection and an annual grant
program as part of the USCCB Committee on National Collections. It allocates
revenue received from the Collection for the Church in Latin America as grants
across Latin America and the Caribbean. More information about the Collection
for the Church in Latin America and the many grants it funds, as well as
resources to promote it across the country, can be found at www.usccb.org/latin-america.
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Keywords: Latin
America, youth, clergy, lay formation, Collection for the Church in Latin
America, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, catechesis, grants, Bishop
Eusebio Elizondo
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