Renars Birkovs is a priest who was born in Latvia, a small Baltic country with barely two million inhabitants. He considers himself a spiritual son of the martyred priests of Latvia during the Soviet regime. In 2023, at the age of 35, his archbishop appointed him diocesan judge of the Archdiocese of Riga. For him, the weapons of the 21st-century priest are devotion to the Eucharist, deep prayer, communion, and constant formation.
He entered the seminary and, once ordained a priest, his bishop sent him to Spain to study Canon Law at the University of Navarra thanks to the help of the CARF Foundation.
A vocation that will leave its mark
Like him, the CARF Foundation, in its 35 years of existence, has helped almost 40,000 students, including seminarians and diocesan priests, men and women from 131 countries. All of them have been able to improve their intellectual, human, and spiritual training, return to their countries of origin, and serve in the most needy areas of the world.
Coinciding with the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart and the World Day of Prayer for the sanctification of priests, the CARF Foundation has launched the campaign “A vocation that will leave its mark. Help seed the world with priests.”
“If we fill the world with priests with the same Heart of Jesus, we will change the world completely. Your help will have a direct impact on the academic, human and spiritual formation of thousands of seminarians and diocesan priests and men and women religious so that they may be saints, learned, happy and sporty,” the campaign emphasizes.
And, as Fr. Renars Birkovs says, in societies that are increasingly secular and distant from God, if we help seed the world with priests, we are helping to foster communion with them, in addition to supporting their training and constant education.
With your help, every month or punctually, you collaborate in the sowing of priests who will leave their mark, and you deduct 80% of the first €250. It will only cost you €50 because the Treasury will refund you €200. From that amount, the law establishes a 40% tax reduction.
About: The CARF Foundation was born on February 14, 1989 by inspiration of Saint John Paul II and impulse of Blessed Álvaro del Portillo with three purposes: to pray for priestly vocations; promote the good name of priests throughout the world; and help the formation of seminarians and diocesan priests and men and women religious to better serve the Church around the world.
Currently, thanks to the support of its benefactors and friends, the CARF Foundation has financed study aid for almost 40,000 students from 131 countries with limited economic resources to improve their intellectual, human and spiritual training at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, in Rome, and in the Faculties of Ecclesiastical Studies of the University of Navarra, in Pamplona. Among them, there are already 134 students who have been ordained bishops and three of them created cardinals.
