Catholic Legacy Week: What is your gift to the world?
This year, during Catholic Legacy week, we are asking: what will be your gift to the world?
Catholic Legacy Week starts on Pentecost Sunday, 3 June 2022. During this week, we are encouraging all our supporters to consider leaving a gift in their Will to help Catholic charities, and in particular to consider leaving a gift to the Dominicans.
Catholic Charities need your help
Recently, the Dominican Friars joined with other Catholic charities as a member of Your Catholic Legacy. These charities work together to encourage Catholics to help the future work of the Church – by leaving a donation to a Catholic charity in their Will.
Thinking of our history, the Catholic Church in Britain in modern times has been relatively poor. It grew again out of the marginalised – immigrants, recusants, converts – people who were often not wealthy, but showed extraordinary generosity and allowed churches to be built and Catholic charities established.
However, our Catholic organisations today are typically not well-endowed, and need continuing financial support. In recent years, for example, a number of long-established Catholic educational institutions have had to close because of financial difficulties. It is vital that we secure the future of the Catholic charities and churches that our forebears sacrificed so greatly to establish.
When you are writing your Will, you have an opportunity to make a difference to the future, by leaving behind your gift in support of a Catholic charity.
Legacies are vital for the Dominicans
Gifts in Wills currently make up a fifth of the friars’ annual income. Legacies have often arrived in a timely way in recent years, allowing pressing financial challenges to be overcome. In past centuries, we even counted royals and other eminent persons among our legacy benefactors (find out more)!
One major legacy paid for the project to fix the roofs and repair the stonework of Blackfriars priory in Oxford, and also laid down funds for the training of the new generation of friars.
Another smaller legacy allowed the friars in Cambridge to install high-quality secondary double glazing in 2021, improving the insulation of the chapel, and protecting the “angel windows” designed by the late Lay Dominican Bronwen Pulsford.
Legacies of all sizes give vital support to the friars and their mission, and we pray daily for all who have given in this way.
For this reason, I would encourage you, once you have taken care of the needs of family and loved ones in your Will, to consider including a gift to the Dominicans. This could be the most important gift of your life, and a way of extending your support of the Dominicans after your death.
What to do next?
Here are some practical pointers to help you to set up a legacy gift in your Will.
- Not sure where to start? – Try our Free Will-Writing Service
- Need information to include in your Will? – View online information or send for our free booklet, ‘Writing your Will’.
Need to discuss something?
We recommend that you discuss a gift in your Will with either the Development Office or the bursar of your local Dominican priory. We can advise on details to include, and how best to direct your support.
- To discuss your gift in confidence, contact me at the Development Office. development@english.op.org / 01865 610208.
Thank you for your support!
Mr Richard Brown, Development Director
