This year, I chose “You Are the Light of the World” as our theme for the 2020 Annual Catholic Appeal to highlight the tremendous faith-filled efforts we have made this past year and to celebrate the potential of each one of us to grow in our love of Jesus Christ in the months to come.
Through our churches, schools and ministries across the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, we act every day to create and strengthen opportunities for people to grow in relationship with Jesus Christ. This is no small task, and it is only possible because we come together to prayerfully work toward our common goal with God blessing our efforts.
I am particularly excited about where we are as the Church in central and western Oklahoma. The Catholic population is growing, we are developing a stronger culture of evangelization and discipleship, and people are embracing the opportunities God gives them to build up his kingdom.
Please allow me to thank all those in this community for the implementation of the One Church, Many Disciples campaign. The successful conclusion of our first archdiocesan campaign this past summer will allow us to build the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine, begin endowments to help fund long-term faith formation ministries and provide resources for many local parish projects.
The extraordinary response to the campaign has been overwhelming to me. I am so grateful for the sacrifice and commitment of so many who helped make the campaign such as success.
As we move forward as a Catholic community, we now turn our focus toward the implementation of our new pastoral plan, Vision 2030. The plan includes focusing on five unique priority areas of ministry: discipleship, marriage and family life, education, young people and embracing our cultural diversity. These priorities are seen through the lenses of liturgical life – love of God – and Catholic social teaching – love of neighbor.
The Annual Catholic Appeal is the mechanism we use as an archdiocese to raise the funds needed to help implement the goals of building a culture of conversion and discipleship by creating new ministry initiatives to help strengthen marriages and family life and by addressing the unique needs of the young. There is a cost to implementing new ministry and I am grateful for your gifts to help in this process.
This year, through the Annual Catholic Appeal, we seek to raise $3.6 million to fund ministries that include seminarian education, Christian leadership development, marriage and family support, healing ministries, defending the value of human life and finding new and better ways to strengthen formation of children, adolescents and young adults.
I ask you to prayerfully consider what God is calling you to give this year to the Annual Catholic Appeal. When we come together, God blesses our selfless actions and uses this simple act to do things we never imagined possible.
“You are the light of the world … Let your light so shine that they may see your good works and give glory to your father” (Matthew 5:14).
Thank you for supporting the efforts of the archdiocese through your generous giving.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Most Reverend Paul S. Coakley
Archbishop of Oklahoma City