Pastoral Letter on Poverty; Pledges $100,000 for Implementation

(11/29/12 Unedited News Release From The Roman Catholic Diocese Of Wheeling-Charleston)

In the fourth pastoral letter of his episcopacy, Most Rev. Michael J. Bransfield, bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, calls attention to poverty in West Virginia and its devastating effects on the state’s children.

Titled “Setting Children Free--Loosening the Bonds of Poverty in West Virginia,” Bransfield completed the pastoral letter earlier this month.  While announcing the pastoral today, Bransfield also committed $100,000 to matching grants for parishes, schools and agencies in the Diocese who wish to implement local programs and outreach to address issues identified in the pastoral.

“It is my hope to speak to the grief and anguish of the poor among us, especially the experience of our children and families in poverty, and offer to them a compassionate message of joy and hope,” Bransfield says in the letter. “At the same time, I want to invite you, dear brothers and sisters, to join me in compassionate care for the poor and continual solicitude on their behalf.”

The bishop notes in his letter that West Virginia experiences higher incidents of low birth weight and infant mortality than the national average. The child death rate is higher, as is the percentage of children approved for free and reduced-price school meals. The child abuse and neglect rate is above the national average, as are the number of children with poor oral health, the teen birth rate, and percent of births to unmarried teens. All of these statistics, taken together, he said, give a clear understanding of the experience of poverty among young people and its consequences for their health.

“To help the children of our state rise from poverty will take a wide variety of approaches,” the bishop says in his letter. “Extending compassionate care to children means that we should work for policies regarding health (including the effects on children of behavioral health problems of addiction and mental illness) and education which will give these young ones ‘long lives, full of well-being.’”

The bishop also talks about the many issues through which children of poor families in West Virginia suffer, such as parents who are incarcerated and parents who are addicted to drugs. Education is also a focus in the letter, calling attention to the obstacles the state’s children face. All too often, the bishop says in the letter, those involved in education in the Mountain State are faced with the interacting problems in the lives of students that combine to undermine the chances for academic success: stresses due to poverty, to addictions, to chronic health problems in their families. The solution, he continues, for low academic achievement in the Mountain State engages a number of factors and initiatives outside the schoolhouse walls.

“As your bishop, I have sought to address the most pressing aspects of poverty in our Mountain State,” Bransfield says in the letter. “Concern for the poor, as part of our mission in the New Evangelization and as active work on their behalf, continues to be a corporal work of mercy. We are committed to feeding the hungry and clothing the naked; we are committed to educating our young people and tending to the physical and spiritual needs of all. We do so, motivated by the love of Christ and following the example of Our Lady, Mother of the Poor.”

The bishop first sent his pastoral letter on poverty to all Catholic bishops and archbishops in the United States in advance of their November meeting in Baltimore.

The $100,000 matching grant program will kick off in December when requests for proposals will be made available to parishes, schools and charitable agencies across the diocese.  A poverty matching grant committee will make distributions approved applicants. 

Following his appointment as the eighth bishop of Wheeling-Charleston in 2005, Bransfield promulgated “A Church That Heals: A Pastoral Letter on Health and Well-Being in West Virginia” in 2006; “Hearts Made Whole: A Pastoral Response to Behavioral Health in West Virginia” in 2011; and “On My Holy Mountain,” addressing concerns of mine safety in West Virginia in 2010.