Catholic Bishops Distribute $2 Mil For Haiti, Latin America Education Projects

HAITI, CHILE, CLERGY EDUCATION RECEIVE GRANTS FROM BISHOPS’ SUBCOMMITTEE ON LATIN AMERICA

WASHINGTON—The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Subcommittee on the Church in Latin America has made public the grantees for its latest funding cycle. In total, $2,777,917 was approved for distribution among 128 projects in 23 countries. Of that amount, $972,869 went to help rebuild the Church’s infrastructure in earthquake ravaged Haiti and Chile. Clergy and religious formation took up the bulk of the remaining awards, while other catechesis and evangelization projects in Central and South America, and the Caribbean also benefitted.

"The projects approved by the subcommittee show the Church in action: supporting thousands of priests, sisters and laity working every day to bring the Good News to some of our poorest brothers and sisters,” said Archbishop José H. Gomez, Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles and chairman of the subcommittee. “From Caracas to Cochabamba, from Argentina to the Antilles, the Collection for the Church in Latin America helps to strengthen communion within the Church in the American continent, which is home to half the world's Catholics."

In Haiti, the subcommittee’s aid will help provide temporary parish centers in 27 parishes, provide temporary classrooms and supplies to the national seminary and radio transmission equipment for Catholic Radio Soleil in Port-au-Prince. The funds for this help came from the special collection for Haiti held in most parishes immediately after the earthquake.

In the eleven dioceses impacted by the Chilean earthquake, eighty percent of the chapels were destroyed or left unusable. The subcommittee approved funding for twenty temporary chapels for parishes in Chile.

Funding for the education of religious and clergy personnel totaled more than $400,000 in 14 countries. Grants to support indigenous faith communities in Ecuador, Guatemala, Venezuela, Mexico and Nicaragua were also included in this grant award cycle.

More information on the Collection for the Church in Latin America and a list of March 2010 approved projects can be found at http://www.usccb.org/latinamerica/.

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