New CSAF president: Financially supporting 20 Catholic ministries with personal touch, enthusiasm

About 10 p.m. one recent evening Tizoc Rosales learned of a family friend who was in intensive care with heart, kidney and respiratory issues.

Learning a priest had not yet visited to administer the sacrament of the anointing of the sick, Rosales quickly texted one he knows well, who dropped everything to get to the hospital.

What stands out for Rosales, president of the Catholic Services Appeal Foundation in St. Paul, is “the selflessness and the willingness that this priest says, ‘I’ll gladly do it.’ And it’s late at night and he’s not even assigned there.”

That kind of personal, heartfelt assistance from so many in ministries across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis is what Rosales, 49, is emphasizing as he takes the reins of the CSAF and kicks off the foundation’s annual appeal in all parishes Feb. 26-27 to support 20 ministries in the archdiocese.

His message to local Catholics?

“Please think about it on a real, personal level,” Rosales said. “Have you ever had a loved one that needed the anointing of the sick? Have you ever wanted your kids to be prepared for the best marriage possible? Have you heard stories of someone in prison who had a conversion because of a chaplain ministering to them? Have you ever sent your high schooler to the March for Life with other youth from the archdiocese? Have you ever known someone in an unexpected pregnancy needing help, hope and good counsel to choose life?

“Have you ever sent your child off to college, hoping, praying that they keep their faith? Have you ever known someone who has experienced the loss of a child through abortion?” he asked. “Have you ever stopped to think what we’d do without good, holy priests bringing us Jesus? Have you ever known a family that so desperately wanted a Catholic education for their kids but could not afford it?”

Resources to help in each of those situations are provided through the generosity of Catholics who give to the CSAF, which this year hopes to raise $9.8 million, Rosales said.

Guiding CSAF

CSAF president since October, Rosales already has overseen moving the foundation’s offices in January from Plymouth to the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul, which is home to many of the ministries the foundation supports. CSAF also has a new board chairperson in Yen Fasano, and Rosales will be hiring a new director of the appeal and a new database manager.

Moving into the ACC means free office space for the foundation, saving an estimated $1,700 a month in rent, or more than $20,000 a year — money that will be devoted to the ministries CSAF supports, Rosales said. The move, he said, also opens the door to closer collaboration among archdiocesan and ministry leaders and the CSAF. Renewed unity and energy will be key to the foundation letting people know the importance of their support, and the success of the ministries themselves, he added.

“Of course, there’s potential to grow financially,” Rosales said of his goals for the foundation’s efforts. “But more so, is the potential for the CSAF to help in galvanizing the community, uniting the community. There is the potential in having CSAF be a way that people can engage in the many good things that are going on in our local Church.”

He added: “There’s just so many good things going on in our Church and community, not just in our Church, but in the local Catholic community.”

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Fasano brings varied experience to CSAF board

Yen Fasano might be familiar to people in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis as host on videos created for the Archdiocesan Synod process.

Or for her role since September as associate director of the archdiocese’s Office for the Mission of Catholic Education’s Drexel Mission Schools Initiative, assisting Catholic schools that serve many low-income students and students of color.

Fasano, 39, a member of St. Anne-St. Joseph Hien in Minneapolis and All Saints in Lakeville, also fills another high-profile role — board president of the Catholic Services Appeal Foundation, which supports 20 ministries across the archdiocese, including Catholic school scholarships and grants, evangelization and faith formation on college campuses and in parishes, and assistance to those facing unexpected pregnancies or trying to find a home.

Fasano has been a CSAF board member since 2015 and assumed the board president role in September.

“My goals for the CSAF are three-fold,” Fasano told The Catholic Spirit as the foundation welcomes its new president, Tizoc Rosales, and prepares to kick off its $9.8 million annual appeal in parishes Feb. 26-27. First by leading “the board prayerfully, thoughtfully and strategically as we guide the CSAF through this next important and exciting phase.”

Fasano said she also hopes to leverage the various gifts of the seven-member board and invite new board members to help the foundation meet the needs of the local Church.

“Closest to my heart’s mission is to seek ways that the CSAF can collaborate, partner, bridge and unite, so that we may more effectively serve and support our Archbishop (Bernard Hebda) and the priorities of our archdiocese through these ministries,” she said.

CSAF’s roots go back to 1959. Most recently it was led by an executive director, Jennifer Beaudry, from 2014 to 2021. As Beaudry left the CSAF and the foundation looked to the future in light of the Archdiocesan Synod process, which involves all members of the archdiocese and an anticipated pastoral plan late in 2022 from Archbishop Hebda, the board sought a more public face for the CSAF by creating the position of president, Fasano said.

With help from Williams Executive Search Inc. In St. Louis Park, prayerful discernment, and consultation with leaders in the archdiocese, the board unanimously agreed that Rosales, who joined CSAF in October, was the person “the Holy Spirit desired for this role at this precise time,” Fasano said. “It was evident he has a passion and enthusiasm for the work of the CSAF and the ministries it supports.”

Fasano brings a wealth of experience to the CSAF board, as a former teacher in Catholic schools in Memphis, Tennessee and Chicago; a former director of evangelization at St. Anne-St. Joseph Hien; a retreat leader and mentor to young adults who for two years also helped administer scholarships to racial minorities as part of Minnesota-based Page Education Foundation; and a current member of the board of St. Paul-based Aim Higher Foundation, which provides scholarships for students in Catholic elementary schools.

And she realizes the importance of funding provided by CSAF.

“Some of the ministries and the meaningful work they do would cease to exist (without the CSAF), because for some, we provide a majority, if not 100% of the funding for them to carry out their mission,” Fasano said. “There simply would not exist this crucial, impactful and collective opportunity for Catholics (and others) in the area to engage with and through these ministries.”

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Firsthand experience

Rosales, a member of St. Joseph in West St. Paul who also attends Mass closer to home at St. Peter in Mendota, said he knows many of the ministries firsthand, starting with his first memory of the priesthood as a 5-year-old boy, seeing joy-filled Father Raymond Monsour when the priest was pastor of the parish where Rosales grew up, Our Lady of Guadalupe in St. Paul.

Mass was a must in his close-knit family, with Church-involved parents Francisco, an electrician in Minneapolis, and Ramona, an administrator in education, and Rosales’ younger sister and younger brother, all of whom still live in the Twin Cities.

His parents met whatever needs presented themselves at the parish, Rosales said. His parents also helped found a medical clinic, La Clinica in St. Paul, now part of Minnesota Community Care, that serves people regardless of income or insurance status. His mother was a founder of charter school Academia Cesar Chavez in St. Paul, and, as a student at the University of Minnesota, she helped convince the administration to found the Department of Chicano and Latino Studies, Rosales said.

By witnessing his parents in action and hearing their stories as a child, he learned something about selflessness and sacrifice, he said.

Rosales attended then-St. Matthew elementary school in St. Paul, now part of Community of Saints Regional Catholic School in West St. Paul, and Humboldt High School, also in St. Paul. He was involved with Our Lady of Guadalupe’s youth group, and after high school graduation, he attended the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, for one year.

But that was expensive. During his first year in college in 1991, he landed a summer internship with a financial services firm in St. Paul. His mother was director of the Hispanic Pre-College Project at the University of St. Thomas, also in St. Paul, where he could attend with a discount on tuition. He decided to remain in the Twin Cities, and he earned a marketing degree at UST, with an eye toward graduate school at Notre Dame.

“But I met this girl (his wife, Avenna), and one marriage and six kids later … she won! I won,” Rosales said, smiling.

Financial career, Catholic ministry

Rosales’ internship at Securian Financial turned into a full-time underwriting position, then management roles and his plan to stay with the company until a comfortable retirement at age 65.

“And you want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans,” Rosales said.

Rather than staying at Securian as he had expected, Rosales found that his connections, the good counsel of a priest friend and prayer led him to a sales management job at Cummins Power Generation in the Twin Cities, with accounts across the country as well as Latin America and South America, from 2005 to 2011.

During that discerning process, Rosales got to know the Catholic Community Foundation of Minnesota in St. Paul, a financial investment, stewardship and philanthropic organization, and he began attending Catholic fundraisers and other functions. He realized that his financial talents, love of people and national connections could build up organizations that were created to help others, and not serve simply as a means to career advancement and corporate goals.

In 2011, Rosales said, he felt called to help young adults in the Church, and he was hired as development director for St. Paul’s Outreach, a college campus evangelization and faith formation organization now based in Inver Grove Heights. In 2014, he was named senior advancement officer at The Seminaries of St. Paul, comprised of St. John Vianney College Seminary and graduate-level The St. Paul Seminary, where he helped secure more than $40 million toward their joint strategic funding campaign.

At SPO and later at the seminaries, Rosales began to run into people he had known in college, at Securian and at Cummins, some he had never known were Catholic, who were strong supporters of Catholic causes. It helped convince him he was in the right place at the right time, he said.

“All these people that I met over the years and all these different segments of my life are involved in Catholic causes,” Rosales said. “The world became really small, really fast.”

He wasn’t looking beyond The Seminaries of St. Paul when he heard that CSAF was searching for its first-ever president, Rosales said.

“Then an executive search firm reached out and we had some conversations, and one thing led to another,” he said. “My wife and I were presented with the decision to pray about it, and that we did.”

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GENEROSITY MULTIPLIED

People across the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis helped the Catholic Services Appeal Foundation have a net result in 2020 that allowed the foundation to distribute another $330,000 for special projects in more than a dozen Catholic schools and several other ministries.

“It was an amazing display of the community helping others — which is what the CSAF is all about,” said Tizoc Rosales, president of the foundation. “Because of the generosity of those who support the CSAF, we were able to do more good that year.”

With the appeal’s $9 million goal met, and taking into account donations and ministry expenses, CSAF’s special grants helped Abria Pregnancy Resources, which has sites in St. Paul and Minneapolis, broaden its outreach to women, teens and couples facing unexpected pregnancies, and improve security at its clinics. St. Vincent de Paul Society-Twin Cities purchased a new forklift for its food and clothing distribution efforts, and St. Paul’s Outreach in St. Paul received a grant for additional young adult work on college campuses around the country, CSAF said in a summary in its November newsletter of the extra assistance that was provided.

Building repairs at Immaculate Conception Catholic School in Columbia Heights, building renovations at Most Holy Redeemer Catholic School in Montgomery and Presentation of Mary Catholic School in Maplewood, along with sidewalk repair at Community of Saints Regional Catholic School in West St. Paul and funding a new Catechesis of the Good Shepherd program at St. Rose of Lima Catholic School in Roseville were among school projects furthered by the additional funds, CSAF said.

Rosales and other CSAF officials visited many of the sites that benefited from the funds to present oversize, symbolic checks of the financial help being provided.

“God willing, we’ll be able to do that again someday,” Rosales said. “It all depends on the success of each year’s campaign.”

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Related:

• ‘Together in Hope’: CSAF appeal emphasizes creating a better future for all