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We have been talking about the changes in the Catholic mass
but there are other changes in the news.
Because of the shortage of priests, there are many more
foreign born priests coming into the country. Many Catholics have mixed
emotions about that. In my sister’s parish, they now have a priest from the Philippines
I remember in the old days where the Poles had priests that
spoke Polish and the Italians, etc. had theirs. As things got melted together,
you at least had American priests that grew up in the same traditions as the
parishioners did.
But now, due to the lack of priests, foreign priests are
being imported some with very little command of the English language.
Out of the 293 priests serving the metro Detroit
area, 50 are foreign born from countries like: India ,
Vietnam , Mexico , Philippines ,
Africa, Poland and Ireland
Obviously the lack of priests is not a temporary problem; it
will continue till there is only a handful and the Church has to deal with
that. The priesthood could be expanded simply by allowing priest to marry which
could also help in eliminating the potential for more priestly sexual abuse
cases.
I recently heard a bishop defending the celibacy requirement
by saying if Jesus was celibate, so will we. But how in the hell does he know
Jesus was celibate? Most historians
surmise that he was definitely NOT celibate from what the Gospels seem to
indicate. Anyway, I don’t think the Church will have many options in the very
near future.
As to the foreign born priests; I guess it will depend on
how much American Catholics will be willing to put up with. There will always
be priests in other countries desperate to come to America
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