My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

The Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe will be taken up at the Lord’s Day Masses on August 13 and 14 in our diocese. This collection supports essential unmet pastoral needs in 22 countries in Central and Eastern Europe and areas of Asia formerly under Soviet control. Our assistance is vital to the growth and strength of the Church in these regions.

Aging physical structures, insufficient funding, and a lack of trained lay persons and religious are common challenges in these countries. One way the Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe responds is through educational grants. With our support, lay students, priests, religious, and seminarians receive graduate education in places as diverse as Vienna, Rome, Lublin, and Washington, D.C. They then return home to serve the local church in vital ways, building the capacity of the church of the region.

One such former student is Fr. Yurko Kolasa, who was raised in the Soviet Union. Fr. Kolasa is now a prefect of the training program for priests, seminarians, and religious at the International Theological Institute near Vienna, Austria, and he is also the developer of a marriage preparation program that has had an impact on the success rate of marriage in Ukraine. Fr. Kolasa’s marriage preparation program has been so successful that it is being used as a model for the Romanian Greek Catholic Church and throughout Austria.

The pastoral projects and scholarships supported by the Collection build the capacity of the Church in Central and Eastern Europe by creating leaders and developing programs that will continue to encourage self-sufficiency.

Please be generous in the Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe where great needs remain. Your support will truly make a difference.

With every prayerful best wish, I am

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Most Reverend Robert J. McManus
Bishop of Worcester

(Please read or print this letter in the parish bulletin on the weekend of August 6-7 and take the 2011 Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe at all Masses on August 13-14.)