Foreign priests train for U.S. work

Nearly 1 in 5 Catholic priests working in the United States arrived from a foreign country, coming here to help alleviate a growing priest shortage, to work with immigrants from their home country or to do traditional missionary work.

Over the past three weeks, a handful of them gathered at La Roche College in McCandless to study English and learn about the history of U.S. Catholicism to help them get acclimated to their new place of ministry.

The college formed the Summer English Institute for International Clergy and Religious in answer to a study by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that found that while many dioceses were relying on foreign priests, many were also doing little to train and acculturate them.

“They discovered it was a problem,” said the Rev. Thomas Schaefer, founder of the institute and associate vice president for academic affairs at La Roche. “We presented this program in response to a need,” said Father Schaefer, pastor of Byzantine Catholic parishes in Greenfield and the South Side. It’s “a service to the church, and we’re a Catholic college.”

The institute includes a mix of classes in English as a second language, taught by La Roche ESL instructor Christine Yaklich-Miller; classes in American Catholicism; and cultural

immersion. These include an American-style cookout with hot dogs and a sampling of the country’s religious diversity, including visits to a Greek Orthodox church and a synagogue.

This year’s participants included one Roman Catholic priest and four priests in the Byzantine Catholic rite, which is loyal to the pope while using the same Eastern liturgy used by Orthodox and allowing married men to become priests. In addition, this year’s class included the wife of one of the priests and a Byzantine Catholic subdeacon who is preparing for ordination.

The previous two years of the program drew 12 students total. Some dioceses with large numbers of foreign priests have inquired about having La Roche send instructors to their own location to reduce costs, something Father Schaefer said is under consideration for future years.

This year’s participants said in interviews they appreciated the training as they seek to communicate more clearly, through preaching and conversation, with Americans.

They cited simple lessons, such as how the same word could be a noun or a verb depending on which syllable is emphasized.

Several of them said they view their work as a missionary calling here in a country where declines in religious observance are well-documented.

Among Catholics alone, such spiritual vital signs as baptisms, confirmations, church weddings and school enrollment have declined dramatically in recent years, particularly in the North and Midwest.

“It’s a privilege to me in the sense that some years past, people from Europe and then here came to my country to evangelize us,” said the Rev. Bright Appiagyei-Boakye of Ghana, now a chaplain at St. Albert Schools in Council Bluffs, Iowa. “Now here I am to help.”

And the Byzantine Catholic priests see themselves on a mission. They are serving parishes in and around Pennsylvania that were founded by immigrants from the same parts of Europe they’re from — present-day Western Ukraine and Eastern Slovakia.

But many of those parishioners’ families have been in America for a century now, and some of their descendants have drifted away from the church while other Americans with no Slavic roots are embracing the tradition.

“I do feel like a missionary,” said the Rev. Radko Blichar of Presov, Slovakia, who arrived in America to the serenade of fireworks on the Fourth of July.

He, his wife and two young children are staying temporarily in a North Side rectory while preparing for a ministry assignment.

“If you are going to a parish, you have a certain number of people [already there],” he said. “It has its own rhythm, its own traditions. If you are a missionary, you are searching for people,” seeking to offer them “a relationship with God.”

Still, there are traditions that bind churches in the Old World and New World, such as the unique form of Byzantine Catholic plain chant.

This is a “treasure of our church,” said the Rev. Vasyl Symyon, a native of Ukraine and now pastor of Byzantine Catholic parishes in Weirton, W.Va., and Avella. “In Eastern Catholic churches you can hear these melodies, from Western Ukraine to Phoenix.”

More than 6,600 “international priests” are working in the United States, about 17 percent of the total, according to researcher Mark Gray of Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, which studies Catholic trends.

The countries sending the most priests are India, the Philippines, Nigeria, Ireland and Mexico, he said.

The number is nearly double the 3,500 from two decades ago, but Mr. Gray said the U.S. church historically relied on large numbers of foreign priests until the mid-20th century, when it generated enough of its own.

Dioceses vary in their use of foreign priests.

The Diocese of Greensburg has for years supplemented its ranks with Filipino priests.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh does not have a similar program, although individual foreign priests do sacramental work while here studying at Duquesne University.

The Byzantine Catholic Archeparchy of Pittsburgh has brought in nine priests in the past three years from Eastern Europe, a place where large numbers of men are entering the priesthood, Father Schaefer said.

“The ones who are here seem to be integrating very well,” he said. “I see them doing things that are creative in the parishes.”