The 2020 Good Shepherd Campaign
United Now More Than Ever in Christ
The 2020 Good Shepherd Campaign is an opportunity to extend our Christian service by helping to raise $275,000 in support of ongoing diocesan priorities; 100% of your gift goes toward:
- The seminarian education and internship program
- The Archdiocese's response to the COVID-19 pandemic in support of its parishes
Click here to download the 2020 Campaign brochure.
Dear Faithful of the Archdiocese of Saint Boniface,
The year 2020 will forever be etched in our hearts and minds. We were shaken by the COVID-19 pandemic and its repercussions that challenged us to find new and better ways to unite, to choose love for our neighbour and to question our own habits and attitudes.
At the Diocesan Centre, we discerned our role right from the beginning of the pandemic: to ensure the safety of all our faithful; to facilitate communication with and between parishes; to provide spiritual nourishment through the innovative use of various means of communication; and to help parishes cope with the financial impact of this crisis.
Despite the challenges, what we have experienced together fills me with hope for our future, for we are united now more than ever in Christ. Diocese and parishes, priests, deacons, religious, and lay people were mobilized to provide spiritual and material services adapted to the circumstances. In addition, we celebrated three ordinations, one to the diaconate and two to the priesthood, and have five seminarians called to serve the faithful of our community once they have completed their formation.
Through the Good Shepherd Campaign, I appeal to your generosity to support the formation of seminarians, the central goal of our campaign, but also to help us counter the enormous impact of the pandemic on the resources available to the Archdiocese. Despite having practiced frugality, the Archdiocese of Saint Boniface is accumulating a worrying deficit due to the loss of income caused by the pandemic.
Please dare once again to be generous toward the Good Shepherd Campaign: the future of our archdiocese depends on it! I invite you to discern, in prayer, how you could contribute to the campaign this year.
With gratitude, in Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd,
Archbishop Albert LeGatt
Archbishop of Saint Boniface
United in Support of the Formation of New Pastors
Meet Our Seminarians for the Archdiocese of Saint Boniface 2020-21
Please click here for the full Meet Our Seminarians 2020-21 banner.
"Vocations aren't the result of planning, but an encounter with God that changes your life." Pope Francis
Watch the videos below to hear our newly ordained priests, Fr. Brian Trueman and Fr. Jean-Baptiste Nguyen, share about what the call to the priesthood means to them.
Serge Buissé – A Testimonial by the Seminarian for the Archdiocese of St. Boniface
Serge Buissé, who will be installed as acolyte this Sunday, November 1st, talks about his vocation to the priesthood, his decision to say Yes to the Lord, his studies and his future as a priest.
Mass to celebrate Serge Buissé's Installation as Acolyte – November 1st, 2020
Archbishop Albert LeGatt will preside Mass at Serge Buissé's installation as acolyte on Sunday, November 1st at 10 AM at Saints-Martyrs-Canadiens Parish. The celebration, which will take place in French, will be webcast on the Saints-Martyrs-Canadiens Parish YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFLbnkM6HlRYpb4QjiXeBOg/live
United to Build a Living Church
"How do we minister during the pandemic? From one day to the next, we could no longer gather in our churches as before. The diocesan pastoral team multiplied its remote communications with parishes to help frame new ways of carrying out ministries, for example catechism classes. Limited access to our churches has not diminished our need for spirituality, but it has stimulated our creativity! Together with the parishes, we have found new ways to live our faith. All this work is worthwhile – I sincerely believe that the parish and diocesan teams are more united than ever. Through God's grace, we even reached believers who had distanced themselves from our Christian family."
Mireille Grenier, Director of Pastoral Services
Some examples of the Diocesan Centre's initiatives:
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Good Shepherd Campaign Committee: Daniel Bahuaud, Gisèle Barnabé, Richard Fréchette, Mireille Grenier,
Fr. Joshua Gundrum, Yvette Martin, Suzanne Munroe, Katelyn Sutton
For more information on the Good Shepherd Campaign:
Julie Paquin
jpaquin@archsaintboniface.ca
204-237-9851
Click here for the 2020 brochure.
Please Support the Good Shepherd Campaign
Sr. Charlotte Leake
Parish Life Director at St. Joseph the Worker
“COVID-19 certainly produced challenges for the parishes, but the Archdiocese was unbelievably helpful and supportive: the updates every week on the number of people we could have in, the precautions we need to take, the reduction of the diocesan tax, etc. It connected with us through its Web page, emails, and video conference meetings. In our parish, we did not have the capacity to live-stream Mass, so we were grateful that the Archdiocese was offering that service with the involvement of parish people like myself.
It is important for us to support the Good Shepherd Campaign in any way we can, because we need priests and programming at the diocesan level for all of us as missionary disciples involved in making our Church very welcoming, knowledgeable and centred in God.”
Sr. Charlotte Leake
Parish Life Director at St. Joseph the Worker
Are YOU interested in learning more about a PRIESTLY VOCATION? Please contact Fr. Joshua Gundrum, Diocesan Director for Vocations to the Priesthood at vocations@archsaintboniface.ca.