By Michael Morse, Executive Director of the Catholic Community Foundation of Southwest Florida Inc.
Throughout the Diocese of Venice, generous parishioners provide ongoing annual support for their Parish by way of their offertory gifts and for the Diocese by way of the Catholic Faith Appeal. This annual support is so appreciated and so critical to the Catholic Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel, educating the faithful and serving those in need.
However, on multiple occasions, devoted Catholics have expressed concern about what would happen to their Parish, school or favorite Diocesan program after they have passed away. They have worried about whether or not the next generation will be as devoted to their Catholic Faith, whether they will attend Mass, send their children to Catholic School or be willing to support the programs and ministries of the Church.
Unfortunately, this concern may be well-founded. According to the Pew Research Religious Landscape Study, 35% of Baby Boomers and 28% of Generation X identify as Catholics, however, only 11% of Millennials identify as Catholics. This trend is not unique to the Catholic Church. Every major religion included in the Pew Research Study showed similar declines in religious participation by subsequent generations.
To help address their concerns as they look to the future of the Church, Catholic families and individuals are now looking to blend their current annual giving with a future gift in their will or trust to establish an endowment. An endowment fund provides a perpetual source of revenue to the Catholic organization of their choice. This helps ensure the long-term sustainability of their Parish, school or Diocesan program about which they care most.
For example, Susan donates $1,000 per year to her Parish through the offertory and would like to continue this support after she is gone. Susan works with her estate planning attorney to include a provision in her will to fund an endowment with the Catholic Community Foundation of Southwest Florida with a gift of $25,000.
When Susan passes away and the endowment is funded, the Foundation will use a portion of the endowment each year to replace her $1,000 annual support to her Parish. The remainder is invested in Catholic-screened investments, which allows it to grow and support annual payouts to the Parish forever. By establishing her endowment, Susan has helped ensure that her Parish can serve as the hands and feet of Christ to those in need for generations to come.
In addition to endowment funds, the Catholic Community Foundation offers a wide range of gifting options for Catholics including scholarship funds, donor advised funds, charitable gift annuities, charitable remainder trusts and more. The Foundation works with each donor individually to first understand what they want to accomplish and then determine how best to accomplish it.
To learn more about the Catholic Community Foundation, please contact Michael Morse at 941-441-1124 or by email at Morse@dioceseofvenice.org. You can also visit the Foundation website at www.CCFDioceseofvenice.org.
For those who struggle paycheck to paycheck or are on the brink of homelessness, thanksgiving has a different meaning. It can mean loneliness, despair and hunger as most places that would offer a caring meal are closed for the holiday weekend.
To meet the need in Manatee County, the St. Joseph Food Pantry in Bradenton uses the first three days of Thanksgiving Week to distribute special bags of food to more than 1,200 individuals and families.
Bishop Frank J. Dewane was in Sarasota on Thanksgiving Day where he joined the Knights of Columbus Council 3358 for the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner for the community.
In Immokalee, the faithful of St. John the Evangelist Parish in Naples offered “Thanksgiving in the Park” which provided more than 2,000 hot meals. Some 100 volunteers helped prepare the meal and even more served the food on Thanksgiving Day in a spot adjacent to the Immokalee Airport.
Catholic Schools throughout the Diocese participated in these efforts with food drives that benefited Catholic Charities, the St. Joseph Food Pantry and other community feeding programs.
For the faithful of St. Thomas More Parish in Sarasota, such a day occurred Dec. 1, the First Sunday of Advent, when Father Gordon Zanetti was installed as Pastor by Bishop Frank J. Dewane.
As part of the installation, the priest begins with selected words leading to the start of the Creed when he is then joined by the faithful. At the end of the Creed, the new Pastor has extra lines which are exclusive for him. In addition, the Pastor makes an Oath of Fidelity to the Bishop and his successors; formalized by the placing of his hand upon the Book of Gospels.
Part of that celebration was the Nov. 23, “Enchanted Sea – Second Annual Saints and Sinners Gala” at the Westin Cape Coral Resort at Marina Village which brought together parents, faculty, staff and supporters of the school for an evening of fun and relaxation.
The event was supported by priests from several local parishes as well as the principals from Bishop Verot Catholic High School and St. Francis Xavier Catholic School, both in Fort Myers.
Bishop Frank J. Dewane led a prayer service for the staff of the Catholic Center in Venice on Dec. 1. The prayer service included the blessing of the Advent Candle, Christmas Tree and Nativity scene which will be on display in the lobby throughout Advent.
The Mother Frances de Sales Auxiliary to the Homeless held its Fourth Rose Ball Nov. 30 at the Naples Grande Beach Hotel and Resort where 22 young ladies were recognized for their commitment of volunteer service and formation. The event benefited four organizations in Collier County that work to help break the cycle of homelessness. Bishop Frank J. Dewane presented each young lady with a silver Rose Ball medallion of the organizations’ patron, Mother Frances de Sales, known as St. Leonie Aviat, who was canonized on Nov. 25, 2001. The ladies, known as Rose Girls, committed to a two-and-a-half-year volunteer and personal formation program where they make pledges of dignity, charity, and purity and were presented to those gathered as Dignified Ladies of Volunteer Service.
During that span, Bishop Dewane spoke on behalf of the U.S. Conference on issues of health care, human dignity, human rights, development, poverty and justice.
On the 100th Anniversary of Veterans Day, and for the 10th year in a row, the Diocese of Venice celebrated a Catholic Mass at Sarasota National Cemetery with more than 1,300 people in attendance.
Father Edward Martin, who served 20 years as a U.S. Army Chaplain and is Temporary Administrator of St. Isabel Parish in Sanibel, celebrated the Mass for Bishop Frank J. Dewane, who was unable to attend due to a commitment at the annual meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. More than a dozen Priests and several Deacons joined Father Martin.
Adding to the dignity and ceremony of the day were active and retired veterans – some of whom attended in uniform, as well as the Fourth Degree Knights of Columbus who formed a Color Corps, and many other Knights who were there to support the veterans.
There are 20,900 veterans and eligible family members currently interred in the National Cemetery and more than 19 million military veterans in the United States.
To commemorate those events, the Catholic-Jewish Dialogue of Collier County hosted its annual “Kristallnacht: The Night of Broken Glass” Nov. 17 at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Naples. The event, now in its 16th year, was co-sponsored by the Diocese of Venice and Jewish Federation of Greater Naples.
The nearly 150 prison outreach volunteers were recognized for their work by Bishop Frank J. Dewane during a Mass of Appreciation on Nov. 8 at St. Maximilian Kolbe Parish in Port Charlotte. The outreach provides a variety of services, including Bible study, religious education and assistance with receiving the sacraments such as Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation.
The group was also blessed to have two special guests, Florida Department of Corrections State Chaplaincy Administrator Johnny Frambo and Chaplain Father Severyn Kovalyshin of State Region 3 (which includes the entire Diocese).
