Diocesan Programs

What is Stewardship?

All members of our family of faith are called to be Christian stewards and share their gifts of time, talent and treasure in proportion to the blessings they have received from God.                - International Catholic Stewardship Council  (www.catholicstewardship.com)

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Stewardship is a Christian lifestyle…By acknowledging our dependence upon God for all life, we are called to regard both material things and human capacities not as private possessions or as the property of limited groups, but as God's.

Stewardship calls us to hold in trust numerous values: natural resources, care for the poor and those who are sick, the sanctity of life, and conservation of the world's goods. Stewardship demands that we adopt an ethic of responsibility toward the earth as well as toward all human persons.             

Stewardship "has clear social implications related to ecological and environmental concerns … a responsibility to care for and to share the goods we hold in trust." 

Rootedness in prayer and spirituality necessarily leads to stewardship, alerting us to be sensitive to life and to the needs of others. An attribute of an authentic steward is generativity -- the willingness to move beyond self into involvement with the larger world, to mentor others in life-giving ways, to use power responsibly, to engage in wise and future-oriented decision making, and to have the courage to "let go and let God."  - The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought (1994)

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Stewardship is the proper use of time, talent and material blessings. Stewardship expresses the idea that God is the gift giver and that each one of us is entrusted with various gifts to be used in the service of God's people.  -   Partners in the Harvest II brochure

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Whatever I receive is "gift" and the very nature of gift is that it be given,
not hung onto.   -   Celebrating the Word, Sept. 30, 2001