Catholic Home Missions:
Launched in 1998, the Appeal strengthens the Catholic Church in the United States and its territories where resources are thin and priests are few. Grantees include 90 Latin and Eastern Catholic dioceses in Appalachia, the South, the Southwest, the Rocky Mountain states, Alaska, and the islands of the Pacific and Caribbean. The Appeal also supports about 25 organizations and religious communities engaged in home mission work. The appeal funds a wide range of pastoral services, including evangelization, religious education, the maintenance of mission parishes, the training of seminarians and lay ministers, and ministry with ethnic groups, especially Hispanics.