Catalina updated and my programs are gone

Apple has announced and warned users that 32-bit apps would no longer be supported on Catalina for about a year, now.

Update your Apps, if possible, or erase the drive and restore from your backup.

Revert your Mac to a previous macOS version - Apple Support

Look into the Free LibreOffice, it handles MS Office files…

https://www.libreoffice.org/

Apple macOS (Mac OS X)

The software and hardware prerequisites for installing on a Apple macOS computer are as follows:

• LibreOffice 6.3.x: macOS 10.10 (Yosemite) or higher

• LibreOffice 6.2.x: macOS 10.9 (Mavericks) or higher

• Intel processor

• 512 MB RAM

• Up to 800 MB available hard disk space

• 1024x768 graphic device with 256 colors (higher resolution recommended)

It is a recommended best practice to back-up your system and data before you remove or install software.

Notes:

• For certain features of the software - but not most - Java is required. Java is notably required for Base.

• Due to an issue, there are the following restrictions with Java: on macOS 10.10 and newer, JRE isn't found, JDK is required

• LibreOffice 4.3 can still run on OS X 10.6+, but please understand that this support ended when 4.3 was retired on May 27, 2015.

https://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/system-requirements/#Apple

Feature Comparison of LibreOffice v6.3 with Office 365/Office 2019 for Mac

https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Feature_Comparison:_LibreOffice_-_Microsoft_Office