FADICA News

Los Angeles – – Mother M. Clare Millea, ASCJ, Apostolic Visitator for the Vatican’s Congregation on Religious Life, told thirty-five members of FADICA gathered here on May 13-14, 2010, that the current examination of apostolic communities of women religious in the U.S. is more a process of self evaluation, reflection and affirmation than a probe of misconduct. “Nothing is forced,” Mother Millea said, “it’s all by invitation,” the sister reported. Speaking of the first phase of the process, which consisted of the circulation of prepared questionnaires, supplemented by face-to-face listening sessions, Mother Millea said: “I came in, I had no agenda. I just asked the religious to tell me their story, their hopes, their joys, their concerns.” The current third phase of the listening process has enlisted 78 religious who are helping Mother Millea gather interviews from about 85 U.S. congregations of women religious. “We’re getting some excellent feedback from the onsite visits,” she said. According to Mother Millea the process has been divided into four stages. The first two involved data gathering on 341 congregations. Some 78% of U.S. congregations provided the requested information, which Mother Millea said was “a wonderful statistic for a step in the process which is voluntary.” This current third phase of the inquiry, according to Mother Millea, will conclude this December, followed by the composition of a report to the Congregation on Religious Life based on data gathered, interviews and input from the communities. When pressed by members of FADICA as to her hopes and concerns for the process, Mother Clare

Los Angeles, CA – – The members of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities will gather here May 13-14 to take part in the second in a series of conferences this year on the ministry of women religious. The invitation only gathering entitled: The Leadership and Philanthropy of Women Religious: Global Partnerships for Human Progress, will discuss the international dimensions of the work of Catholic sisters today. Sustainable agriculture, the work of sisters communities as NGO’s positioned at the United Nations, and the current ministry of sisters in Haiti, will serve as the principal areas for the discussion. The conference is co-sponsored by FADICA and the Conrad N. Hilton Fund for Sisters, a private foundation which has awarded over $75 million in grants to support the work of religious women, world wide. Also featured at the forthcoming gathering will be a presentation by Mother M. Clare Millea, ASCJ, of the Vatican Congregation on Religious Life. Mother Millea will explain to FADICA members the purposes and process of current Apostolic Visitation of religious communities in the United States. Mother Millea is a Connecticut native who is superior general of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, an international religious institute that has its headquarters in Rome. The number of Catholic sisters in the US declined from 173,865 in 1965 to 79,876 in 2000, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Earlier this year Mother Millea talked about the Visitiation saying, “We hope to discover and share the vibrancy and purpose that continue to

WASHINGTON, D.C. – – Georgetown University announced that it received a $6.9 million gift from the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Foundation of Los Angeles to create and name three programs that will enrich the university’s 220-year-old Catholic and Jesuit heritage. The Leavey Foundation has been a member of FADICA for twenty eight years and its chair, Kathleen Leavey McCarthy, serves on FADICA’s board of directors. Of the sum, $5 million will provide permanent financial support for the university’s innovative Catholic programs in the Office of Mission and Ministry. The gift will endow programs and a new position that will provide expanded spiritual and educational opportunities for faculty, staff, students and alumni. Programs will allow participants to gain a deeper understanding of the Catholic and Jesuit traditions from which the university gains its identity. Enhanced programming will build a larger corps within the university community, so members may understand and live out Jesuit values, whatever their faith or role at the university. Another $1 million will provide need-based scholarship support, with preference to students from Jesuit high schools – including Cristo Rey schools, a national network of Catholic high schools that provide college preparatory education to urban young people who live in communities with limited educational options. Academic programs also will benefit from the Leavey Foundation’s gift, including $900,000 to help Georgetown recruit and retain outstanding Jesuit faculty members through the Leavey Distinguished Jesuit Scholars Fund. Since its creation in 1952, the Leavey Foundation has donated more than $100 million to beneficiaries in California and throughout the country,

Washington, D.C. – – A California based private foundation interested in Catholic organizations helping underserved populations of Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and an international medical aid agency were welcomed to the FADICA network of funders January 28, at the organization’s thirty fourth annual meeting. The Y and H Soda Foundation was founded by the late Mr. and Mrs. Y. Charles (Chet) Soda in 1964. Long time residents of the East Bay, both were active in a variety of civic, Catholic, and philanthropic organizations, and shared a special interest in helping low income families improve their lives and well-being. Mr. Soda was one of the original co-owners of the Oakland Raiders football team. As President of the Board of Port Commissioners of the Port of Oakland, he also played a significant role in developing the Port into the second largest container port in the United States. The foundation recently completed a strategic planning process for the next three years and has identified three areas of focus for its work in the East Bay: family economic success, community engagement and urban Catholic education. The Catholic Medical Mission Board was founded in 1928 and is rooted in the healing ministry of Jesus. The organization works collaboratively to provide quality healthcare programs and services, without discrimination, to people in need around the world. Most recently the CMMB has committed ten million dollars in special aid to Haiti in the wake of January’s earthquake there. CMMB has been working in Haiti since 1912 and maintains a key office there. Last year,

Washington, D.C. – – In the wake of an earthquake of historic proportions which leveled numerous areas of the capital of Haiti, Port-au Prince, and took the lives of the archbishop there and many clergy, seminarians, and religious, members of FADICA are joining in solidarity, prayers, and grant support for rescue and recovery efforts orchestrated through church related agencies. “We echo the words of Pope Benedict today calling for the generosity of everyone, and the effective support of the international community”, said Francis J. Butler, FADICA’s president. According to initial reports pieced together by various charitable and church related news agencies in Haiti, Port au Prince is completely devastated. Seminaries and churches have been reduced to rubble with widespread loss of life. Catholic Relief Services of Baltimore, the main vehicle for the U.S. church’s emergency aid globally, reported that the dead and injured in the wake of the earthquake is “incredible all around”. The Holy Father affirmed through his public statement that the “Catholic Church will not fail to move immediately, through her charitable institutions, to meet the most immediate needs of the population.” This quake, which was followed by 12 aftershocks ranging between a magnitude of 5.0 and 5.9, was the strongest in that region since 1770. It is estimated that some 3 million people were affected by the disaster. Click here for an interview with Archbishop Dolan, chairman of Catholic Relief Services, on relief effort.

Washington, D.C. — Three members of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities will join with a delegation of three U.S. bishops and one American Cardinal who will visit South Africa August 27- September 5, 2009. The delegation will also include four senior staff members of the United States Conference of Bishops. The group is undertaking the visit in connection with the work of the Solidarity Fund for Africa program of the Catholic Church in the United States. The program aims to provide pastoral aid to the rapidly growing Catholic churches in African nations. The delegation is expected to visit rural parishes, refugee camps, hospitals and medical treatment clinics working with HIV/AIDS patients, as well as other sites where pastoral care among the poor is offered through Catholic ministries. The Solidarity Fund for Africa program was inaugurated in 2007 and is rapidly expanding its base of support among Catholic archdioceses and dioceses throughout the United States through a parish- based collection and, it is hoped, funding partnerships with private foundations and other donors interested in the future of the church in the fifty-three nation continent of Africa. African Catholicism is growing at a breathtaking pace and numbers about one quarter of the entire Catholic population of the globe. Too often, the church’s pastoral mission within many countries of Africa is mired in abject poverty, political instability, famine, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. While seminaries and religious communities burst at the seams with new members, lack of financial resources and external aid leaves the churches in Africa sorely incapacitated.

Washington, D.C. – – A published, edited, conversation between funders and bishops occurring last month here , urges leaders of the U.S. hierarchy to include Catholic schools among the top priorities that will command church leadership emphasis for the next three years. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has undertaken a new priority setting process whereby five areas of church life will receive special attention and programming that will impact parish and diocesan activities nationwide. The priorities will be approved this coming fall when the entire hierarchy meets here to set its direction until 2013. The five priority subjects include: Deepening faith in Jesus Christ; strengthening marriage and sacramental practice; encouraging and celebrating cultural diversity; enhancing efforts on behalf of human dignity; and promoting vocations to priesthood and religious life. To date, Catholic schools, have not been included in the national action plan and priorities to be approved by the bishops. Members of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, a consortia of private funders, urged the bishops to consider the accelerating rate of Catholic school closures nationwide and enlist the attention and action of wider sectors of America to save these valuable institutions. “What do you say to people who feel that these schools are being lost to us as a church and that our institutional capacity in education is shrinking?” FADICA ‘s President, Francis J. Butler, asked USCCB Vice President Bishop Gerald Kicanas, Chairman of the conference’s planning process. “Why is this not a top priority for the bishops especially when time is

Washington, D.C. — Private foundations that historically provide a lion share of grants to the Catholic church worldwide each year, will gather in Washington, D.C. on June 5th, to talk about newly announced priorities for the Catholic Church in the United States. The exchange between the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ task force that has articulated the church’s priorities, and Catholic philanthropic leaders, is sponsored by Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA). Bishop Gerald Kicanas of Tucson Arizona, who has led the three-year USCCB planning effort, and who now also serves as USCCB Vice President, will share with foundations how the priorities were determined and what they will mean for USCCB programs from now until 2012. The priority setting plan entitled: Deepen Faith, Nurture Hope, and Celebrate Life, will seek to deepen religious faith, strengthen marriage and family life and sacramental practice, celebrate best cultural diversity, enhance respect for human life, and promote more vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. The plan goes beyond broad objectives and will be focused in specific new initiatives that will be approved by the nation’s bishops this November. What is unclear at this point is how the plan’s activities are to be funded in a time when recessionary pressures are constraining the economic resources of the church at all levels. Moreover, it is also uncertain how the new priorities will address other urgent diocesan needs like saving urban parochial schools, for example, or improving Sunday church attendance. Whether the new priorities will impact the dozen or

Washington, D.C — Sister Mary Scullion, RSM, founder of Project H.O.M.E., a Philadelphia-based program working with homeless people, and an advisor to FADICA, has been chosen among Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. The announcement was included in the March 30 edition of the publication. Sister Scullion spoke to the FADICA group earlier in the year as it was exploring ways in which foundations and community-based programs can work more effectively in collaboration with one another. The discussion was part of a FADICA conference entitled: Reinventing Catholic Philanthropy. Over the past twenty years, Sr. Scullion developed over five hundred units of housings and developed three businesses that offer job training to the homeless. Over 95% of the homeless who cycle through Project H.O.M.E. never again become homeless, a success rate that has made the effort a model for dozens of other cities. Sister Scullion has cut the homeless population of Philadelphia in half through her success. She attributed the astonishing results to collaboration and partnership within the Philadelphia community, especially citing the early and consistent support of the Connolly Foundation, a member of the FADICA organization. “As in the case of our phenomenal Catholic benefactors like the Connelly Foundation, there are many ways other than grant support that foundations and donors can help your grantees”, Sr. Scullion told the members of FADICA. Sr. Scullion said that foundations and donors like the Connelly Foundation were able to open doors and enlist the aid of friends and civic leaders who have proved critical to Project H.O.M.E.’s success. “The

Washington, D.C. — Robert A. Smith, III, President of the Carrie Estelle Doheny Foundation of Los Angeles, has been elected to the board of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities (FADICA). The election of Mr. Smith was part of measures taken at FADICA’s thirty-third annual meeting. Mr. Smith will be serving his first term as a FADICA director joining sixteen other foundation leaders who plan and oversee the interaction and programs that FADICA sponsors. Mr. Smith has served on the board of the Doheny Foundation since 1980 during a time in which the philanthropy awarded more than $150,000,000 in charitable grants. The Carries Estelle Doheny foundation was the creation of the late Mrs. Edward Laurence Doheny, foundress of the Estelle Doheny Eye Foundation who helped to build hospital wings, chapels, and buildings for charities in the Los Angeles area. Robert Smith is a native of Los Angeles and business leader there, is a UCLA graduate, the father of six grown children, and active in church-related volunteer service in Southern California. Under Mr. Smith’s leadership, the Doheny Foundation has advanced community-based initiatives to help low income families. The Children’s Dental Center of Greater Los Angeles, which treats thousands of children, adolescents, and young adults, is among the foundation’s recent grantees, along with Homeboy Industries, a program assisting at-risk and former gang involved youth to become contributing members of the community. “The addition of Rob Smith to our board of directors gives FADICA another leader who is passionate about social justice and who is a person of vision