2026 Bishop’s Annual Appeal – Learn more or donate online atdscf.ca/baa
By Bishop Mark Hagemoen, Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon
As we embark on this year’s Bishop’s Annual Appeal, I invite you to take the opportunity to reflect on our theme: “Called to Respond: Living the Father’s Will” These words remind us of Jesus’s reflection and call to us to live and act in the love of His Father and our Father:
“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.”(John 15: 9-10)
Pope Leo has just provided us with his first encyclical titled, Magnifica Humanitas (“Our Magnificent Humanity”). The pope is responding to our world marked by restlessness, uncertainty, and increasing concerns about the state of our common humanity in the world, with a message about the profound greatness of our common human dignity. As Pope Leo states,
“There is also the more profound and important level of ontological dignity. This is the dignity that belongs to every human being simply by virtue of existing, of having been willed, created and loved by God. No sin, failure, humiliation or exclusion can diminish the profound value of a human life that God has willed and called into being.”(MH #52).
This dignity is blessed and manifest to one another and to the world as we love and act like God.
The Bishop’s Annual Appeal is not simply a fundraiser. It is a personal and communal act of discipleship and a way by which we participate in the mission of Christ in our world of today. Through the Bishop’s Annual Appeal, that mission becomes visible across our diocese. Your generosity helps support seminarians preparing for priesthood, ministries serving families and youth, outreach to the poor and vulnerable, Indigenous reconciliation initiatives, pastoral care in our parishes, Catholic education and faith formation, and the many works of evangelization that proclaim Christ’s love in our communities.
I therefore invite every parishioner, every family, and every community in our diocese to prayerfully consider how you can support this year’s Bishop’s Annual Appeal. No gift is too small when it is offered with faith and love.
The aim of our appeal is not “to have people giving more”– but rather, “to have more people giving!” …participating and sharing together the work of God’s people in our local faith communities …for our world of today. Thank you for your prayers, your generosity, and your faithful witness to Christ.
May Mary, Mother of the Church, who responded wholeheartedly to God’s call, intercede for us. May she teach us to say with courage and humility: “May it be done to me according to your word.”
I conclude with the words well known to us from St. Francis of Assisi, as we celebrate 2026 as the Year of St. Francis: “Lord, make me a channel of Your peace; Where there is hatred let me bring You love; …Where there is despair, hope; For it is in giving that we receive; and in dying that we are born to eternal life.” (Prayer of St. Francis)