The CARF Foundation presents its 2023 Report in which, despite an unstable political-economic situation, it has been able to meet its challenge: to maintain almost six million euros of aid to diocesan seminarians and priests, and religious men and women, so that they receive integral formation at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, in Rome, and at the Ecclesiastical Faculties of the University of Navarra, in Pamplona.
«With an unstable political-economic situation, the efforts of all the benefactors and friends of the CARF Foundation [about 5,400] have meant that we are very close to covering the gap of almost two million euros that occurred in 2022. That year, the obtaining of resources from legacies and wills and from the management derived from our endowment fund were not accompanied. Thank God, this year 2023 both aspects have been much more positive. In addition, one-off donations and periodic payments behaved in line with the previous year», says the president of the CARF Foundation, Fernando Martí Scharfhausen, in his letter of presentation of the Report.
Some data from the 2023 financial year
- Countries: we have trained students from 80 countries on five continents. Since the beginning of the CARF Foundation, the total number of countries of origin has risen to 131.
- Students: a total of 2,171, of whom 700 study in Pamplona and 1,471 in Rome.
- Continents: the countries represented by continent are: Europe, 23 countries; America, 21; Africa, 22; Asia, 12; and Oceania, 2 nations.
- Donors: the CARF Foundation does not depend on public subsidies. Some 5,400 benefactors guarantee the independence and continuity of the project each year.
- Alumni: four alumni from Rome and Pamplona were ordained bishops: Juan Manuel Cuá Ajucum, bishop of Quiché, Guatemala; Teodoro León Muñoz, auxiliary bishop of Seville, Spain; Francisco José Prieto, metropolitan archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Spain; and Raimo (Ramón) Goyarrola, bishop of Helsinki, Finland.
- Regular donations: €1,325,013 were raised through monthly, quarterly or half-yearly contributions.
- One-off donations: €3,273,921 was raised, the largest amount of money, thanks to campaigns aimed at individuals, institutions and companies.
- Wills and Legacies: €2,915,460 was raised, thanks to many people bequeathing all or part of their assets to the CARF Foundation.
- Endowment: the endowment fund provided €553,971 for study grants, which represents 10% of the total grants awarded.
However, the main mission of the CARF Foundation is to pray for priests and for vocations; secondly, to spread the good name of the priest throughout the world; and, as a fundamental support for their work, to help them in their comprehensive training.
Campaigns for donors and friends
As mentioned above, the CARF Foundation campaigns receive a generous response from benefactors and friends. In 2023, the following were launched:
- Share God’s smile on earth: put a face to your donation. To tell the donor which student they are helping. Starting at five hundred euros per year, each beneficiary receives the name and surname and a short story of the beneficiary. This is the most important campaign of the year, and takes place in the last four months of the year.
- Help sow the world with priests: so that no vocation is lost. In the second four months, a project is activated that aims to spread, on social networks, on the web and in digital and physical advertisements, the great need for well-trained diocesan priests who return to their countries to do good and, in turn, train others.
- You give life to the Church: donate legacies and charitable wills. A legacy is a testamentary provision to benefit a non-profit institution. For the CARF Foundation, it is the way to always keep your effort to achieve a better world alive, even when you are no longer in it.
- Donate a backpack of sacred vessels. Supported by the CARF Foundation’s Social Action Board (PAS), all seminarians who graduate from the Sedes Sapientiae seminary (Rome) and in Bidasoa (Pamplona) receive their backpack with an alb custom-sewn by volunteers.
Attention to material needs
The CARF Foundation always respects the will of donors. Some specifically support social and pastoral projects in various countries, as well as activities aimed at promoting and developing the humanities. The PAS makes it easier for the priests helped to dedicate their time to the pastoral mission. To this end, €55,440 was allocated to different projects: providing liturgical objects to churches with limited resources; medical-sanitary aid for displaced seminarians and priests and care and assistance for older priests; and supporting worship in parishes with difficulties.
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About: The CARF Foundation was founded on February 14, 1989, inspired by Saint John Paul II and encouraged by Blessed Alvaro del Portillo, with three aims: to pray for priestly vocations; to promote the good name of priests throughout the world; and to help train seminarians and diocesan and religious priests to better serve the Church throughout the world.
Today, thanks to the support of its benefactors and friends, the CARF Foundation has financed study grants for almost 40,000 students from 131 countries with limited financial resources to improve their intellectual, human and spiritual formation at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, in Rome, and at the Faculties of Ecclesiastical Studies at the University of Navarra, in Pamplona. Among them, 134 students have already been ordained bishops and three of them created cardinals.
