Needs Facing U.S. Mission This Christmas

WISH #24 - St. Christopher By the Sea parish in Unalaska is hoping for a funeral pall and altar candle stands this Christmas.

At St. Patrick mission in Pueblo, Colorado, some kids have allergies that act up at chalk dust, making them cough and their eyes water - so the Sisters there are hoping to replace the old blackboards with dry erase boards. At St. Luke the Evangelist Church in Bruce, Mississippi, a kitchen sink to replace a small washbasin would help make cleanup of their potluck suppers easier. And parishioners at St. Andrews Catholic Church in Hawley, Minnesota, agreed that what they wanted most for Christmas this year was a processional cross - and Father Joe Richards said he could make one himself if he could cover the cost of materials.

These are just a few of the wishes and needs of some of America's mission parishes that are featured on the Catholic Church Extension Society's 2006 Christmas Wish List. Each year, Catholic Extension, the leading supporter of missionary work in America, invites Christmas Wish List requests from parishes among the 84 dioceses it supports in poor and remote areas of the United States. This time of year, requests pour in for basic liturgical items, vestments, materials and repairs. Catholic Extension has listed 45 of the needs on its web site at www.catholicextension.org.

"Many of these items may seem like standard pastoral necessities, but for Catholics who worship in poor and isolated parts of our country with sparse income, they present a real challenge to their budgets," said Bishop William Houck, president of Catholic Extension. "The needs range from sacramental books and vestments and statues to roof repairs and making chapels handicap accessible -- and all of them are important to these small Catholic parishes that need help to provide Mass and basic pastoral services for their faithful."

Many of the Christmas wishes that come out of the missions are heartbreakingly humble. At one small mission church in Leeds, Alabama, mice have chewed through the cord on the electric keyboard and parishioners miss the music at Mass. One mission in Homer, Alaska, needs three altar robes, but wrote that they could "make do" with one if three robes was too much to ask for. And another church in Georgia requested a repair on their statue of Christ, saying that a hand was chipped and part of it had broken off.

"We hope Catholics across America will remember their brothers and sisters in Mission America by helping us grant these humble Christmas wishes," Bishop Houck said. "This past year, a great deal of help was asked for and given to our fellow Catholics in the Gulf Coast region. We are profoundly grateful for that, however, the needs of America's missions throughout the country are quite real and did not go away during this time."

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ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH EXTENSION SOCIETY:
For more than 100 years, the Chicago-based Catholic Church Extension Society has supported Catholic missions in the U.S. by funding church construction, religious education and seminary formation, campus and outreach ministries, evangelization, salaries and operating expenses. Catholic Extension is the leading supporter of Catholic missions in the U.S. and has distributed more than $400 million over its history. To find out more about Catholic Extension, call 1-800-842-7804 or visit www.catholicextension.org.