Photo by Julianna Leopold

ATLANTA—Citing continued growth in the Catholic community in north and central Georgia, Archbishop Gregory J. Hartmayer, OFM Conv., has launched the first archdiocesan capital campaign in 30 years.

“The Holy Spirit has certainly been a part of the growth that we’ve experienced in these last years, and we see no end to it. And so we have a responsibility to prepare for the growth and also to take care of the increasing people who come to the church,” said the archbishop in a recent conversation with The Georgia Bulletin.

Deacon Rick Medina, chief advancement officer for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, publicly announced the “Rooted in Christ—Growing in Faith” $185 million dollar capital campaign at a gathering of donors and archdiocesan supporters on Saturday, Oct. 17, at the Atlanta Botanical Gardens.

Deacon Medina went on to explain that the archdiocese has already raised almost half of the goal thanks to a silent phase that included meeting with major donors as well as 10 parishes that have already launched their campaigns.

Some of the money raised will stay in the parish community where it is raised. A large portion will be funneled into endowments where it will be invested so the proceeds can support the Church for generations to come. A final portion will be used as capital to address some immediate pressing needs.

“What we see here in Atlanta is our parishes are growing because they’re welcoming and because we accept people from all different countries, speaking all different kinds of languages, having come from different cultures, because there’s a high level of acceptance and welcome,” he added.

The campaign is built around three pillars: supporting our parishes and clergy, forming missionary disciples and uplifting our vulnerable neighbors.

Supporting our parishes and clergy

In 2010, the Catholic Extension Society ranked the Archdiocese of Atlanta the 49th largest diocese in terms of Catholic population in the United States. Just 10 years later, Atlanta was the 25th largest. By some measures, this diocese is the second-fastest growing in the U.S.

“Only the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston in Texas added more people than our archdiocese between 2010-2020. Only the Diocese of Los Angeles had more people living within their boundaries (as of 2020),” explained Jenny Miles, who works in the Office of Planning and Research for the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

Parishioners of St. Lawrence Church stand in the narthex during an October 2025 Mass. At least six parishes currently have more people than seats during regular Sunday liturgies. Photo courtesy of Father Henry Atem

“In terms of percent growth, Georgia grew the fastest from 1990-2000. Our Catholic population increased 78 percent while our total population grew 26 percent. However, we are adding more Catholics in each subsequent decade,” added Miles. The expansion is diverse. The Office of Planning and Research estimated that in 2020, 43 percent of all Catholics in the archdiocese identified as Hispanic. Forty-two percent identified as white with other cultural groups making up the remaining population.

What has not kept pace with the growth is the size of the sanctuaries where all of these people worship. The archdiocese has seen this before.

“In the 1970s, corporate migration brought lots of professionals to Atlanta. This spurred a need for new churches in the new suburbs,” said John Schiavone, director of real estate development for Catholic Construction Services, the department that manages property acquisition and construction for the archdiocese. A capital campaign in the early 1990s allowed the archdiocese to fund a number of new parishes and schools, but the population kept growing.

“With that continued growth, much of which is Hispanic, some of the churches we built then are no longer large enough,” said Schiavone, pointing to St. John Vianney Church in Lithia Springs, as well as Our Lady of the Americas Mission in Lilburn, both of which have to open overflow spaces every weekend to accommodate Mass-goers.

Overcrowding is a great sign of an active, healthy church, but can deter people from coming. On any given Sunday, 30 of the 104 parishes and missions in the archdiocese have at least one Mass that is over capacity, meaning that 85 percent or more of the seats are taken.

“This is the point at which people feel uncomfortable,” said Miles. At six parishes, there are more people than seats every weekend.

The challenge to adding Masses is that vocations did not keep up with the growth of the last 30 years. According to the Official Catholic Directory, in 1980, each priest in the archdiocese had the care of an average of 560 Catholics. By 2020, that number jumped to more than 4,000.

Some pastors are celebrating three or four Masses per day of the weekend. This intense schedule can lead to exhaustion or burnout. There are not yet enough priests to increase the number of Masses, but vocations are booming. The archdiocese welcomed the largest seminarian class ever in 2026 and is currently supporting almost 70 seminarians in different stages of formation.

But this too, comes at a cost. Additional seminarians have added an additional $600,000 of expenses this year alone. The capital campaign aims to raise $10 million for an endowment to pay for the cost of formation for the generations of priests to come.

Once a man is ordained to the priesthood, the archdiocese is responsible for ensuring he gets ongoing formation and support for his physical, mental and spiritual health. A portion of the campaign will also endow funding for these efforts.

Forming missionary disciples

Lay Catholics also get support through the second pillar of the campaign: forming missionary disciples. The Office of Evangelization and Discipleship (OED) is developing and disseminating a robust family faith formation program. The model includes support for trained catechists at each church. OED teams are also trying to beef up campus ministry operations to keep young adults engaged in their faith. Five million dollars will expand family formation resources while another $8 million is allocated to college campus ministry. Some will pay for additional staff while the rest will go into an endowment for future support.

The bulk of the second pillar, $40 million dollars, will support the Catholic schools in the archdiocese.

“My wife and I are passionate about Catholic education,” said Jim Slattery, a member of Christ the King parish who also serves on the advisory board for the campaign. “We need an endowment fund to ensure that for every parent who wants to send their kids to Catholic school, money will not bar them from that dream. We do not want Catholic education to be a case of the haves and have-nots.”

In addition to the scholarship endowment, the campaign will spend $2.5 million to expand the Open Doors program and $2.5 million for an awareness campaign to support enrollment for all Catholic schools.

Uplifting our vulnerable neighbors

The last pillar, uplifting our vulnerable neighbors, speaks to work the Church does to strengthen society as a whole. As the population in Atlanta has grown, so have the needs of the most vulnerable members of society. Housing and mental health challenges are two of the most pressing social concerns of the day. Rooted in Christ—Growing in Faith will give Catholic Charities Atlanta and St. Vincent de Paul of Georgia money they need to expand services in these two critical areas.

The campaign will last eight years total, rolling out fundraising requests in waves of 10 to 20 parishes at a time. The endowments created will be housed in the Catholic Foundation of North Georgia, but the archdiocese is creating a trust to oversee management and distribution of proceeds.

The $185 million goal, while ambitious, is carefully chosen. Deacon Medina and the Office of Mission Advancement used market research as well as donor data to establish goals for each parish. The archdiocese hired CCS Fundraising to help with logistics, messaging and pastor support for the duration of the campaign.

CCS is the same firm the archdiocese used for its previous capital campaign. The more money a parish can raise, the more money the parish can keep. Parishes keep 30 percent of the set goal. The parish keeps 70 percent of all money raised between 100-200 percent of the goal, and the parish retains every penny of money raised above 200 percent of the goal.

“A campaign like the one we are in now—the generosity of the people who participate in it is contagious,” said Archbishop Hartmayer. “When we see the joy in their heart (when people donate) … then other people want to do the same. It inspires them. It encourages them. It’s a beautiful thing to watch as a bishop, as a priest, to see the people of God responding to his Church here on earth.”