to allocate to Christian charities at the local, state, federal, and international level the 5% which the Parish titles each budget year from its envelope collections.
In the course of the ongoing Financial Crisis, I understand that percentage was reduced. Now, according to last Sunday's parish bulletin [pdf 1mb, p. 2]
The third Sunday of every month, excluding the months of Christmas and Easter, has been set aside as "Outreach Sunday" by the Parish Council. All loose monies (and checks made out to St. Alphonsus Outreach Program) will be given to the charity selected by the Outreach Committee for that month.
For this coming Sunday, the charity is Catholic Relief Services.
Does this spare change approach replace or just supplement the former parish tithe? It doesn't say. I'd check the Parish Council minutes but they are no longer made available.
Update: The announcement at Mass on January 22nd indicates this collection replaces the former tithe. I calculate if they suggested we give an amount equal to one-fourth of our weekly pledge, it would equal the five per cent tithe. Unfortunately, the parish envelope packets do not yet contain a preprinted Outreach envelope, a necessary (though not sufficient) condition of Catholic giving.
It's an improvement that we're being asked to give to a single recipient and provided with a description of its work. The old system involved small monthly donations usually in response to mail solicitations with essentially no effort to inform parishioners of anything but the Outreach budget total.
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