April 7, 2002

Father Owen's Homilies

Comments in regard to the Capital Campaign: April 7, 2002

By now all the households in the parishes have received the letters which bring the fact of the upcoming Capital Campaign close to home. There have been articles in The Leaven. Ten parishes around the diocese have already engaged in a pilot effort to test the waters. The Nemaha-Marshall, Atchison and part of the Leavenworth Pastoral regions are included in what is called Bloc One. The parish council presidents were at a meeting at Savior of the World Feb. 20 to prepare for the solicitation phase of the campaign. There was a follow up meeting at Kelly on March 14 and there will be another training session at Baileyville April 16. The parish councils, Sr. M. Beth and I will share in solicitation phase of the effort. Since our parishes are relatively small we ought to be able to complete our efforts rather quickly.

Each parish has been given a target amount to raise. This is not an assessment. The letters which you have received give the details on the amount assigned and the percentage of return to our parishes. We do receive 16% of the target and 50% of any over and above. Some uses for that money is suggested in the letters sent to all parishioners. The monies solicited are in the form of cash or pledges over a period of 3-5 years. All Bloc One parishes are exempt from Call to Share for the 2002 collection year.

The name of this campaign is “A Future Full of Hope.” All of us can, in our mind’s eye, look to the time over a hundred years ago, when our fathers and mothers and grandparents established our parishes. My guess is that they had in their minds a future full of hope for us. We are at present enjoying that future. We want to pass this on to our children as well. Some of your children will remain in this parish.

But times have changed. Many of your children will leave this parish. Many will settle in Topeka or greater Kansas City including Johnson County. Some of your grandchildren will perhaps attend Catholic schools in Johnson County or Topeka. The money we might give for efforts in those areas will indeed benefit us at least indirectly but no less personally. I do agree that the money given toward Catholic Charities would benefit us more directly if the Office in Baileyville were reopened on a full time basis. I mentioned that at our last regional meeting. The money for the education of eminarians will have an obvious benefit for us, as more diocesan priests will be coming into our regions.

I will be honest with you. Neither I nor your friends and fellow parishioners who will be calling on you in a couple of weeks will be particularly comfortable doing this task. You will know why they have come. We will all benefit by keeping the big picture in mind. There are needs others have that far exceed our own. While we are concerned about ourselves we need to remember others. Some of those others are our children. Some are future parishioners. We need to ask ourselves whether or not we will pass on to them a Future Full of Hope.

We will do our best with the help of God, our parish councils and any others who would want to help. That is all we can do. Thanks to all of you.