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| October 6, 2008 |
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Annual appeal kicks offMajor donors are thanked and Catholics are asked to give more during the jubilee year. 
Our Lady of Lourdes Academy Jazz Cats sing during the kick-off dinner of the 2008 Archbishop's Charities and Development appeal Dec. 5 at the Coral Gables home of Epiphany parishioner Bunny Bastian. CORAL GABLES | On his 72nd birthday, Archbishop John C. Favalora kicked off the 2008 Archbishop’s Charities and Development appeal by asking Catholics to be especially generous during this archdiocesan jubilee year. KEY DATES• Tuesday, Jan. 15, 11:30 a.m., luncheon for Broward County parishioners, 11:30 a.m., Signature Gardens, Davie • Wednesday, Jan. 23, 11:30 a.m., luncheon for Miami-Dade County parishioners, 11:30 a.m., Parrot Jungle, Miami • Monday, Feb. 4, evening Mass and reception for Monroe County parishioners, St. Mary Star of the Sea, Key West • Weekend of Jan. 26-27, appeal Sunday in all parishes. For more information, call 305-762-1016. “A lot of the money that you donate on this helps us to stay away from closing schools and closing parishes,” the archbishop told more than 200 major donors gathered for a formal dinner Dec. 5 at the home of Bunny Bastian. This is the third year the Epiphany parishioner has hosted the Miami-Dade kick-off event for the appeal, widely known as ABCD. The Broward kick-off dinner was scheduled to be hosted by Nativity parishioner Joe Pecko at his Fort Lauderdale house Dec. 12. Their generosity enables the archbishop to thank major donors without cost to the archdiocese, said Emilio Alonso-Mendoza, president of the Catholic Community Foundation and the archdiocese’s Development Corp. After being serenaded with “Happy Birthday” by the Jazz Cats from Our Lady of Lourdes Academy in Miami, the archbishop thanked those present for contributing to the most successful ABCD campaign to date. Pledges totaled more than $11 million in 2007, and $9 million has been collected so far. “I hope we can move from $11 million this year to $12 million (in 2008), because our needs are increasing,” Archbishop Favalora said. Recalling the Jewish tradition of the jubilee year, he noted that the Hebrew people were instructed not to plant crops every 49th year (seven times seven years) but rather to live off what they had stored from the previous harvest. The goal was to remind them of divine providence and the fact that “God’s blessings to them (were what had) made them prosperous.” He also recalled the practice of the early church, where the prosperous communities in Corinth were asked to support the struggling Christians in Jerusalem. “If somebody is in need in one part of the diocese, the others must help. It was that way in the early church and it should be that way in the late church,” Archbishop Favalora said. Those in attendance at the dinner also saw the 2008 ABCD video, which highlights some of the ministries that have been helped by ABCD funds, among them: Catholic Charities’ refugee resettlement and HIV/AIDS ministry; the ministry to seamen in Port Everglades; and the after-school learning center at St. John Bosco Parish in Little Havana. In closing remarks, Bob Dickinson, former president and chief executive officer of Carnival Cruise Lines, exhorted his fellow Catholics to be generous. “I have never seen a Brinks truck at a funeral,” Dickinson said. “You can’t take it with you.”
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