Livonia — Changing Lives Together, the archdiocese-wide capital stewardship campaign started in 2011 to help strengthen Catholic parishes and other mission priorities in the Archdiocese of Detroit, has achieved a major milestone by surpassing $100 million in pledges, Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron announced July 31.
The archbishop made the announcement during a Vespers service at St. Michael the Archangel Parish in Livonia, with nearly 250 pastors, lay leaders and parishioners in attendance.
“Vespers, evening prayer, is always about praise and thanksgiving, to thank God for what he’s done,” Archbishop Vigneron said. “It’s all just right, just ‘spot on,’ as the English say, because we’re here principally to thank God for what he’s done in us.”
Archbishop Vigneron said he was “profoundly thankful” for the more than $106 million in pledges from more than 71,600 families in parishes across the archdiocese, toward an eventual goal of $135 million. Seventy percent of funds collected from the campaign will go toward priorities identified by individual parishes, such as building improvements and maintenance, pastoral and ministerial programs or paying down debt. The archdiocese will use the remaining 30 percent to strengthen an endowment providing tuition assistance for families in Catholic schools, bolster priestly and lay formation programs, and support the Church’s presence in the city of Detroit.
The school aid endowment has already given out more than $50 million in tuition assistance, the archbishop said, with a goal of helping even more families afford a Catholic education.
St. Michael was chosen as the site of the announcement because it was the first parish in the archdiocese to launch Changing Lives Together, said its pastor, Fr. William Tindall.
St. Michael, which has reached nearly 78 percent of its $947,981 pledge goal, has earmarked the funds for a variety of building improvements — some already completed — including refinished pews, kneelers, doors and confessionals, and installing energy-saving LED lighting and new carpeting. The parish also hopes to enlarge its vestibule, install new handicapped bathrooms, and possibly even refurbish its sanctuary.
“Our parishioners know how much the kneelers needed to be refurbished. The padding was so thin it was difficult to kneel — it was actually a penance,” Fr. Tindall joked, adding on a serious note that installing the wheelchair-accessible bathrooms was a priority given that it has two permanently wheelchair-bound parishioners.
Archbishop Vigneron said despite ongoing economic hardships, shoring up the local Church’s financial house “couldn’t wait” because of the pressing need to free parishes for the work of evangelism. Because of the way pastors, lay leaders and parishioners have responded with generosity in working together with a focus on that mission, he said, “we have become stronger parishes.”
“We’re so practical — this is how we are, we roll up our sleeves and get to work. That’s a good thing,” Archbishop Vigneron said. “It’s about making this Church more attractive, not for its own sake, but so that when people come here they will have an insight into the beauty of God, and then be strengthened to face the challenges that we know are part of trying to live as faithful Christians in a world that doesn’t always agree with us.”
The fundraising was just the first part of “changing lives,” he added. Without announcing further plans, the archbishop said the next phase of the campaign would involve a “big push” and a “total dedication of the Archdiocese of Detroit to the new evangelization” called for by Blessed John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.
The point of the campaign — and the Church itself — Archbishop Vigneron said, is “to share Jesus, because the world needs Jesus. If we don’t care enough to share him, it’s probably a sign that we don’t care enough about him in the first place. That’s what we have to do and that’s what we have to be.”
Bill Blaul, communications coordinator for the campaign, said Changing Lives Together has become not only the largest fundraising campaign in the archdiocese’s history, but also the “most ambitious, and now most successful, campaign of its kind in southeast Michigan” in recent years among human service nonprofits.
Parishes have conducted the campaign in waves, with the first wave of 15 parishes having already exceeded their fundraising target with $12.6 million pledged. The second wave of more than 40 parishes has reached 88 percent of its goal; the third wave of about 43 parishes has reached 90 percent; the fourth wave of 61 parishes has reached 77 percent; and the fifth and largest wave of 75 parishes has seen 81 percent of its goal in pledges. The final wave of about 15 parishes will kick off their campaigns in the near future, Blaul said.
“This is a very significant undertaking and a very significant accomplishment, and we should all be very proud and thankful,” Blaul said.
