Luis Alberto RosalesCARF's work goes ahead because there are three saints who are very committed to it"."10 Minutes with Jesus" will help in the formation of priests through the CARF Foundation.CARF Foundation helped 2,171 students in 20232,171 seminarians and priests have been able to pursue their studies in Philosophy and Theology thanks to the help of the CARF Foundation in 2023. These data, extracted from the report that the foundation presented a few weeks ago, are added to the tens of thousands of students who, in the 35 years that this foundation has been in existence, have passed through the classrooms of these prestigious ecclesiastical faculties.
Álvaro Garrido Bermúdez, is the Director of Communications, Marketing and Fundraising for the CARF Foundation. This communications expert has piloted the updating of the CARf Foundation's brand and the new expansion and information projects launched by the Foundation.
On February 14, 2024, the CARF Foundation celebrated its 35th anniversary. What is your assessment of these more than three decades of work?
-First of all, there is already international recognition of both the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and the ecclesiastical faculties of the University of Navarra as places of reference for training in philosophy, canon law and theology. This recognition is endorsed by the number of students, 2,171 in 2023, who have been educated at both universities thanks to the CARF Foundation.
That this year, but looking back, since the request that St. John Paul II made to the Blessed Álvaro del Portillo to set up a pontifical university in Rome, there have been some 40,000 students from 131 countries around the world. Tens of thousands of students return to their countries with a great formation and there they can form more people. Of these alumni, 134 are now bishops, 3 of whom have been created cardinals.....
San John Paul II knew very well what he was doing. If people are trained very well, not only from the intellectual point of view, but also from the human and spiritual point of view, when they return to their countries of origin, they are a real bomb of grace in every small or large diocese.
In 2023, as highlighted in the Report we have just published, we had students of 80 nationalities: 23 from Europe, 21 from America, 22 students from Africa, 12 from Asia, and only two from Oceania. This is a real marvel.
How are scholarships managed and are they only for seminarians from poorer countries?
-A full scholarship is 18,000 euros. Each bishop who sends students contributes to their studies what it would cost them in their diocese of origin. That is to say, if in Benin, Nigeria, or Haiti, it costs 5 or 10 euros a month for a seminarian, that is the amount contributed by his bishop, and the CARF Foundation seeks the remaining money.
The seminarian who comes from a Brazilian diocese, who usually costs around $120, $130, well, obviously, the bishop has to pay that cost. If they come from Canada or the United States, they contribute what they would cost in their dioceses. We do not believe in the policy of total free of charge, because what it costs is appreciated, even if it is little.
More than 1,100 dioceses are already very grateful for what the CARF Foundation is doing through the universities of Navarra and the Pontifical University of Santa Cruz, because they are the ones who grant the scholarships and we are the ones who finance the study aids so that these students can go through these two great universities.
Every year we have to "start", because it depends on how much we are going to need that year. The aid is not only scholarships; there are those who receive direct aid and others receive indirect aid. For example, we maintain 17 buildings in Rome and Pamplona, including seminaries, colleges, priests' residences, classrooms and the physical structures of the universities themselves..... It is true that not everyone receives direct aid, but without the salaries of the professors, the social security or the rents of the spaces in which things take place, etc., there would be no university.
Do you receive other types of requests?
It is curious because the fact that the website is in 27 languages means that every week we receive five or six e-mails from people who ask us: "What do I have to do to become a priest? We explain what we are and what we do, because we always answer.
We also receive many requests for help from many parts of the world of all kinds, from a priest who asks for help to buy a car or a bus so that seminarians do not have to go by canoe to his seminary, or another who needs sacred vessels and clothes to celebrate Holy Mass with dignity.....
We are bound to our foundational purposes and we cannot help them in these things. What we always do is to pray for them, which is one of our purposes, together with promoting their good name and giving help to finance scholarships, both from the University of Navarra and the Pontifical University of Santa Cruz.
What is the role of the benefactors of the CARF Foundation?
-The benefactors have THE role; without them this would not happen, whether they give 10 or 200 euros a year. It makes me sad sometimes not to be able to thank all those 5400 donors who, with their help, make it possible for this to go ahead.
Sometimes we have hardly any data and it is a person who contributes 20, 10 euros a month. Many of them do not even want the certificate to deduct in the income tax, and that now, with the new law of Patronage the tax deduction is very large.
We do not have a typical age of benefactors. We want young people to know what we do, because that is also where priestly vocations come from, and future benefactors will emerge. Obviously older people who have more economic capacity than young people tend to collaborate more economically. We thank the benefactors for their prayers for the priests and for their help that allows so many priests to be formed and to form others.
In terms of resources, the CARF Foundation is supported by four pillars: wills and legacies, regular donations, occasional donations, and income and income derived from patrimony. These four legs try to support each other and we can influence some of them and not others. For example, our objective is not the growth of our endowment. Our goal is to provide the support, the endowment can grow organically and naturally, but it also has to make its contribution to support, which is usually 10% of what it generates, without losing value.
As our Annual Report shows, the year 2023 was considerably better than the year 2022. Last year we were able to give more than 5 million euros, 77% of our resources, to the formation of seminarians and priests. This was thanks to the fact that we received 2,915,460 euros in wills and bequests, more than 3 million euros in one-time donations and more than 1 million in regular donations, and the patrimony generated 1,458,444 euros.
Wills and bequests, for example, are an essential source of income. There are people who do not have heirs, or do have heirs, but decide to leave their inheritance for this work of the priests and prevent that money from being taken by the State.
Occasional donations have also increased. I think people tend to do that more and more: to share a little bit of that extra paycheck, a little bit of that bonus that you have received or from that lottery that you have won. For example, there are many couples who, when they celebrate their 25th or 50th birthday, tell their friends and family not to give them gifts and to donate the value of whatever they spend to the CARF Foundation.
How do you see the next 35 years of the CARF Foundation?
-Like a future yet to be written. In 35 years, St. John Paul II, together with Blessed Alvaro and St. Josemaría, have achieved many things and continue to promote this task.
Why is the website in 27 languages? Because, obviously, we have to try to make everyone aware of the importance of having a priest. If we run out of priests, the world will end, it will not end because of any kind of agenda, nor will it end because of any kind of ideological strategy. Because the Lord will stop coming down from heaven to earth to be with us.
The UN only recognizes 195 countries, but it is true that then there are small island states that are dependent on the remnants of the French Empire or the Commonwealth and the British Empire, and then you get 210 countries.
The last one on the list, I think I remember, was Somalia. And within all of those, there are Muslim countries, from where people come in who have some kind of concern or worry. I understand that it will normally be Catholic people who enter these countries, but of course, in the end the project has to be a global project.
I believe that one project that the CARF Foundation should undertake is to ensure that a person, without having to set up a foundation in North America, or in Germany, France, Italy, can help seminarians in these and other countries and contribute to this great work.
