Annual Catholic Appeal- Does Anyone Know Where the Money Goes?

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Annual Catholic Appeal- Where Does the Money Go?

Does anyone know?

It’s that time of year again when yet another collection of vital importance takes place. At my church, the Mass is held up to give instructions to the parishioners on how to fill out a simple pledge envelope then collect these with the second collection.

The process takes about 12-15 minutes, but those must be the longest minutes on earth for people who have no money to give. Of course, those people could just fake it and pretend that they are filling out the pledge, but God is watching them, right?

Here’s the manual for conducting the Annual Catholic Appeal. See if you got the same treatment.

annualcatholicappeal.com/pdf/ACAManual2009_en.pdf

At least my church doesn’t give us the 10% tithe BS that some christian denominations do. If you contribute or not is pretty much voluntary and something between you and God.

But this collection is different for some reason. I would like to know where the money goes and for what. I don’t want to here an answer like,“To do God’s work!” or it goes to this ministry or that ministry when they don’t give a full accounting of what and where those ministries are and what they do.

Can anyone answer these simple questions that all businesses must answer to their stock holders and the government?
 
From what our Parish is told the Bishop uses these funds to transfer money between parishes. For example a poor parish might not be able to pay their bills while a wealthier parish may have excess so the Bishop transfers some money between the parishes. Similarly broke catholic schools and other diocese problems are paid in part by these funds.

If you have no money do not worry about it.
 
I don’t know what diocese you are in, but you should be able to find out what the money will be used for.

Here is a breakdown for us in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston:

diogh.org/DSF/dsf2009/MinistriesSupported.pdf

You should be able to find something similar in your diocese.

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
I don’t know what diocese you are in, but you should be able to find out what the money will be used for.

Here is a breakdown for us in the Diocese of Galveston-Houston:

diogh.org/DSF/dsf2009/MinistriesSupported.pdf

You should be able to find something similar in your diocese.

Peace

Tim
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That is something like what I am looking for. It didn’t really say if that was from the Annual Catholic Appeal though. It is possible that those figures are for the distribution of funds throughout the diosese when certain funds are available and not necessarily from the Annual Catholic Appeal alone.

My diocese just had a collection a few months ago called “Catholic Campaign for Human Development” and there was a booklet describing where the funds went and how much was received by each ministry.

archchicago.org/departments/peace_and_justice/pdf/cchd/2008/CCHD_AnnualReport_2008.pdf

The Annual Catholic Appeal is supposed to be handled differently.
 
aucontraire said:
That is something like what I am looking for. It didn’t really say if that was from the Annual Catholic Appeal though. It is possible that those figures are for the distribution of funds throughout the diosese when certain funds are available and not necessarily from the Annual Catholic Appeal alone.

My diocese just had a collection a few months ago called “Catholic Campaign for Human Development” and there was a booklet describing where the funds went and how much was received by each ministry.

archchicago.org/departments/peace_and_justice/pdf/cchd/2008/CCHD_AnnualReport_2008.pdf

The Annual Catholic Appeal is supposed to be handled differently.
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I believe that the Annual Catholic Appeal and the Dioscean Services Fund are the same thing with different titles for different diocese.

Peace

Tim
 
This topic is coming up again since it’s that time of year. I have not found any specific answers to where the money goes. Like a list of organizations. What makes me question this is that a number of churches in states to the west (Kansas Nebraska) have been upset because they found some of the money was going to ACORN. I’m in northern Illinois and I would like to know EXACTLY where this money goes. To say “help inner-city poor” which here means Chicago is not enough. I do not want any of my money to go to organizations like ACORN. These types of organizations, in their activities, are opposed to Catholic church teaching. They may say “social justice”. In this politically charged time we live in that can mean socialism, marxism, facism, communism. I want the answer to where the money goes to be crystal clear.
 
Here, each diocese is assigned a certain minimum. If this is not met through voluntary individual donations, the rest is made up through the parish’s budget. I seriously doubt ACORN gets any funding, but check with your diocese if you have concerns. In any case, it is not up to each Catholic to dictate to the Bishop where every dollar is spent. Such issues should not be an excuse to justify not giving freely of what God has given us. Where would we be if God took away our jobs and our resources because we spent this dollar here on beer, or over there on some other frivolity.
 
woodsdog said:
This topic is coming up again since it’s that time of year. I have not found any specific answers to where the money goes.
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These type of drives are for the diocesan operating funds, as such they go to departments within the diocese.

Here in Detroit, that means things like operating the seminary, suppliments for parishes and schools to help keep them open, diocesan run youth programs etc…
 
You’d have to check with your diocese to see where the money goes. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if they had a web site that outlined things. Ask your pastor or call the diocese.

In this archdiocese the program is called Together in Mission and they give out a list of the parishes and schools that receive subsidies. No one has to wonder at all where the money is going.
 
In Chicago, here is where it goes: annualcatholicappeal.com/

Naturally, it all looks good. Who wouldn’t like to help out a soup kitchen, crisis pregnancy center, poor parish, the Respect Life office, etc. But that’s a long list, and it’s spreading the money pretty thin. If this appeal raises so much money, I must ask why isn’t it itemized? Where’s the accounting of stewardship? Why are so many parishes being closed? You don’t have to be a CPA to ask.

Since we are trusting Chicago Archdiocese with our money, they can give it to whoever they want. In 2008, I learned that Catholic Charities gave money to ACORN & Obama for his election in the name of social justice. If God is watching me, you can bet He’s watching these stewards too. God did not put me on this earth to support left-wing, anti-Catholic groups.

I’d rather go down to the soup kitchen, crisis center, or Respect Life Office myself & give them a check in their name–or better yet, cash.
 
In our diocese, the Annual Appeal goes to various things in the church in the diocese: so… things like outreach and charities, etc., as well as some of the things others have mentioned. It is very much church-related and within the diocese.

In our diocese, it is the Annual Appeal which has the thing where if people don’t pledge enough then the parish has to make up the difference. OTOH, each parish also gets some money that is raised, or maybe a percentage of what is raised over a certain amount.

In our diocese, the CCHD (Catholic Campaign for Human Development) is the one that might end up with a group like ACORN, but not the Annual Appeal. What happens with CCHD is that a second collection is take up all over the US, and then the money goes to the group CCHD which is under the auspices of the USCCB. The money then goes out to the dioceses to be distributed by each diocese under the CCHD guidelines.

It is supposed to have been cleaned up, but I looked at some of the allocations when the bad news came out a few years ago, and it was a mess. First, for some reason the focus was on giving to non-Catholic groups. Second, they were supposed to be local groups, so what happened was that certain large groups would create small local versions of themselves (very easy and not terribly expensive) and thus qualify for CCHD funds that way.

And the groups were not supposed to promote anything against Catholic teaching, but in some areas there was not a lot of oversight on that.
 
St_Francis said:
In our diocese, the Annual Appeal goes to various things in the church in the diocese: so… things like outreach and charities, etc., as well as some of the things others have mentioned. It is very much church-related and within the diocese.

In our diocese, it is the Annual Appeal which has the thing where if people don’t pledge enough then the parish has to make up the difference. OTOH, each parish also gets some money that is raised, or maybe a percentage of what is raised over a certain amount.

In our diocese, the CCHD (Catholic Campaign for Human Development) is the one that might end up with a group like ACORN, but not the Annual Appeal. What happens with CCHD is that a second collection is take up all over the US, and then the money goes to the group CCHD which is under the auspices of the USCCB. The money then goes out to the dioceses to be distributed by each diocese under the CCHD guidelines.

It is supposed to have been cleaned up, but I looked at some of the allocations when the bad news came out a few years ago, and it was a mess. First, for some reason the focus was on giving to non-Catholic groups. Second, they were supposed to be local groups, so what happened was that certain large groups would create small local versions of themselves (very easy and not terribly expensive) and thus qualify for CCHD funds that way.

And the groups were not supposed to promote anything against Catholic teaching, but in some areas there was not a lot of oversight on that.
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I, too, have had real reservations about CCHD. It seems to me it’s not so much engaged in direct charitable giving as it is in supporting organizations that promote “societal change” of one kind or another. As such, I consider it a political organization.

My bishop started a diocese-wide direct charitable program and encourages people to give to it instead of CCHD. I have been happy to follow his request. 🙂
 
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