Latino ministry is the focal point of the 2010 Bishop’s Appeal which began in early May.

“Our outreach to Latinos and Latinas has succeeded beyond my most optimistic projections,” wrote Bishop John Bryson Chane in a letter to 22,000 recipients in the diocese. “Thanks to the excellent work of the Rev. Canon Simon Bautista, the number of Spanish speaking congregants in our diocese has increased by an estimated 700 percent in the last seven years.”

The diocese has seven Spanish language congregations serving some 700 communicants on a typical Sunday. “There is energy, even passion, in this word-of-mouth driven ministry, and we must find the funds to keep it flourishing when the grants that helped launch it run out,” Chane wrote.
The two largest Spanish-language congregations in the diocese meet at St. Matthew’s, Hyattsville and St. Michael and All Angels, Adelphi and are led by the Rev. Vidal Rivas. The Revs. Sarabeth Goodwin of St. Stephen and the Incarnation, Lisa Saunders of St. John’s Lafayette Square and Peter Schell of Our Saviour, Hillandale also serve Spanish-speaking congregations.

Bautista leads the diocese’s newest Latino congregation, which meets on Sundays at 5:30 p.m. at St. Alban’s, D.C., as well as the congregation at Ascension, Gaithersburg.

The 2009 Bishop’s Appeal grossed $143,714 in contributions. Two major gifts totaling $42,000 were received after the appeal closed and will be counted in the 2010 total.

“Your generosity has carried the diocese through some difficult economic times in these last two years,” Chane wrote. “As the economy shrank, both the number and size of gifts to the Bishop’s Appeal grew. I can’t thank you enough for your fidelity to our mission.”

By the time the 2011 Bishop’s Appeal is mailed, the diocese will be nearing the election of Chane’s successor. “Among my greatest desires during these last 20 months as your bishop is that I not leave important tasks undone because we could not find the will to fund them,” he wrote.

Giselle Pole, manager of development operations for the Bishop John T. Walker School and Jim Naughton of Canticle Communications collaborated on the appeal. Pole replaced Lucy Bremner, who retired after three successful appeals.