Combined Collection Program

Beginning in 1999, our Diocese initiated a Combined Collection Program that is conducted 3 times per year (January/March/October) for the benefit of 12 separate National/International collections.  In most Dioceses these appeals are conducted in each Parish as single collections on twelve separate occasions throughout the year.  As a result of the Combined Collection Program, the parishes of the Diocese of Norwich are now required to ‘take-up’ three collections instead of twelve. 

 

The Office of Development is responsible for the design, production and mailing of the letters for all three components (National/World/Mission) of the Diocesan Combined Collection program.  Each registered parishioner throughout the Diocese receives a personal letter of request from the Bishop along with a brochure detailing the purpose of the mailing along with a donation envelope. Each parish is provided with posters, bulletin inserts, bulletin announcements, pulpit announcements and Intercessions.

 

 

National Combined Collection

 The four beneficiaries of this collection are:

 

1) Catholic University

As the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States, founded and sponsored by the bishops of the country with the approval of the Holy See, the Catholic University of America is committed to being a comprehensive Catholic and American institution of higher learning, faithful to the teachings of Jesus Christ as handed on by the Church. With funds from the nationwide Diocesan Collection, Catholic University awards more than $4.5 million in parish scholarships to undergraduate students from Catholic parishes throughout the United States.

 

2) Catholic Communication Campaign

The Good News of the Church needs to be heard now more than ever. The Catholic Communication Campaign (CCC) serves dioceses and parishioners by spreading faith filled messages locally and Nationally:  on radio, television, in print and on the internet. Your generosity will keep daily Catholic TV and radio programs, video and TV reviews, interviews and inspiring stories of faith in action available to all.

 

3) Annual Appeal for the Holy Father

The Peter’s Pence Collection enables the Holy Father to respond with emergency financial assistance to requests to aid the neediest throughout the world--those who suffer as a result of war, oppression, and natural disasters. It likewise provides the faithful with a tangible opportunity to not only empower the weak, defenseless, and voiceless, but also sustain those who suffer.

 

4) Retirement Fund for Religious

Throughout their lives, women and men religious invest in faith and in the future of others, usually with little concern for themselves. Today, many are frail, elderly, and in need of assistance. Often their religious institutes struggle to provide adequate care. Each January, our Diocese conducts the annual appeal for the Retirement Fund for Religious. This fund furnishes immediate support for aging religious and helps their religious institutes implement long-term retirement strategies. Through the ongoing generosity of Catholics to this collection, many religious institutes have been able to seed and stabilize retirement savings. Others have collaborated in creating elder care solutions that benefit senior religious while serving the wider community. The Retirement Fund for Religious offers financial assistance and services that help religious institutes provide for aging members while continuing to focus on mission and ministry.

 

World Combined Collection

  The four beneficiaries of this collection are:

 

1) Catholic Relief Services

Catholic Relief Services Collection supports agencies that build the international social ministry of the Catholic Church. Ministries include relief and resettlement services to the victims of war and natural disasters, development programs to improve the living conditions of the poor, advocacy on behalf of the powerless, peace and reconciliation work for people suffering from violence, and assisting vulnerable and poor newcomers with their immigration process needs.

The agencies supported by this collection are Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Legal Immigration Network, the USCCB Office of Migration and Refugee Services and Department of Social Development and World Peace, and the Holy Father’s Relief Fund.

 

2) Campaign for Human Development

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD) is committed to helping people change the conditions that keep them living in a state of poverty. CCHD projects in our diocese and throughout the United States support low-income people as they work together to improve educational opportunities, create jobs, and improve access to services for the disabled.

By joining in solidarity with Catholics in parishes across our country, you lend strength to efforts already underway to foster self-sufficiency and strengthen communities. Nearly half of all Americans worry they will find themselves in poverty in the future. Let us put an end to poverty in this, the wealthiest of nations.

 

3) Catholic Church in Eastern and Central Europe

This special collection channels aid through the Bishops’ conferences of Central and Eastern Europe to meet the needs of rebuilding the Church: training seminarians and lay leaders, supporting social service programs, youth ministry, pastoral and catechetical centers, schools, church construction and renovation, and evangelization through Catholic mass media.

 

4) Holy Land Collection

The Holy Land, Christ’s homeland, is our spiritual home as well.  Over the years, shrines marking the great events of His life and death have been cherished and protected from harm by the kind support of Catholics the world over. Your generosity is what keeps alive the caring spirit of Jesus in the Holy Places.  You generosity also provides for the pastoral, charitable, educational and social works, which the Church supports in the Holy Land for the welfare of their Christian brethren and of the local communities.

 

Mission Combined Collection

  The four beneficiaries of this collection are:

 

1) The World Mission Appeal

By Baptism, all Catholics are called to participate in the mission of the Church; called to share their faith as missionaries. The World Mission Appeal gathers support for the pastoral and evangelizing programs of more than 1,150 mission dioceses in Africa, Asia, the Pacific Islands, and remote regions of Latin America. The funds gathered are distributed in the Pope’s name by the Society for the Propagation of the Faith — a Pontifical Mission Society.

 

2) Black & Indian Missions

Since 1884, proceeds from the Black and Indian Missions Collection are distributed as grants to dioceses supporting and strengthening evangelization programs, which would otherwise be in danger of disappearing among the Black, American Indian, Eskimo, and Aleute communities of the United States.   

 

3) The Catholic Home Missions Appeal (CHMA)

The Catholic Home Missions 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.

 

4) The Collection for the Church in Latin America (CLA)

Support for various pastoral projects throughout Latin America and the Caribbean is made possible through the Collection for the Church in Latin America. Projects are at the continental, regional, diocesan and local levels, and include the work of evangelization, formation of laity, religious and seminarians, as well as youth ministry and catechesis.

 

 

 

 

Report Form - National
Combined Collection Program

 

Report Form - World
Combined Collection Program

 

Report Form - Mission
Combined Collection Program

 

 

 

 

Office of Development
197 Broadway
Norwich, CT 06360
Phone: 860-886-1928
Fax: 860-886-2651