A Guilty Feeling

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A new priest was recently assigned to our parish who is from Africa. Although he studied in the United States and has previous parish assignments in the USA, he is extremely hard to understand. I live in a single parish community, so “church shopping” is not an option, if I were to even use that as an excuse. I focus on his every word, not only in the liturgy, especially during his homilies, but despite my best efforts find myself only absorbing about 75% of what he says. I am sure that there are many elderly people with less than perfect hearing who are having more trouble than I. I have noticed the attendance at my usual Mass is falling off dramatically. Worse, is the guilty feeling that I have when leaving mass that I have somehow not given everything I could to my attention at Mass. I study the readings before Mass, read and listen along with the readers, closely follow the Liturgy in my Missal, but am clearly missing out on what must be prayerful and well thought out homilies. I can’t even imagine how he must feel looking out over a congregation who are zoning out while he speaks.

I know this will be a fact of life of the Church in the USA as vocations in English speaking countries, including the USA, suffer so much.

I would never consider speaking to him because I am sure he is painfully aware of the difficulty people have understanding his accent.

It is clear that Father is reading from a typed Homily, do you suppose that he would be willing to hand out copies for the congregation to read along with? I pray that our ears become more attuned to his accent sometime down the road.
 
I am also in a “single Parish” small town, and 5 weeks ago we received a new Priest from Nigeria, who has served in both Spain and numerous places in the U.S. Many of our members had trouble with his accent at first, but it’s improving a lot! It helps that we all agree he is the kindest most loving Priest we’ve had in over 20 years! We miss a few parts of his homilies, but he is always willing to explain to anyone who asks what he said & meant after Mass. His reading of the Gospel is clearer, especially since more of us are using the Missal to follow him, which is teaching all of us to understand his accent better. He is also speaking slower, and more clearly to help us understand.

I’ve never enjoyed a Priest as much as this one, and those who in this part of the South who were prepared to dislike him just on the basis of his color, now are enthusiastic about having him with us!

You might suggest to your Priest to do as ours does, speak more slowly, and use a wireless set-up, which makes his words clearer during his homily. God bless your Parish & help all of you. Our attendance is more than double, and soon will be standing room only! That’s how much we’ve all learned to love him in only 5 weeks!:🙂
 
jim6918 said:
A new priest was recently assigned to our parish who is from Africa. Although he studied in the United States and has previous parish assignments in the USA, he is extremely hard to understand. I live in a single parish community, so “church shopping” is not an option, if I were to even use that as an excuse. I focus on his every word, not only in the liturgy, especially during his homilies, but despite my best efforts find myself only absorbing about 75% of what he says. I am sure that there are many elderly people with less than perfect hearing who are having more trouble than I. I have noticed the attendance at my usual Mass is falling off dramatically. Worse, is the guilty feeling that I have when leaving mass that I have somehow not given everything I could to my attention at Mass. I study the readings before Mass, read and listen along with the readers, closely follow the Liturgy in my Missal, but am clearly missing out on what must be prayerful and well thought out homilies. I can’t even imagine how he must feel looking out over a congregation who are zoning out while he speaks.

I know this will be a fact of life of the Church in the USA as vocations in English speaking countries, including the USA, suffer so much.

I would never consider speaking to him because I am sure he is painfully aware of the difficulty people have understanding his accent.

It is clear that Father is reading from a typed Homily, do you suppose that he would be willing to hand out copies for the congregation to read along with? I pray that our ears become more attuned to his accent sometime down the road.
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Hmmm. That’s a tough one. Maybe you could request that he enclose a copy of his Sunday homily in the bulletin so that everyone can continue to reflect on it through the week? Maybe he wouldn’t be offended if you put it that way.
 
Judy beat me to it. I was going to advise that you speak to him about maybe slowing down as it does help with pronounciation. We recently had a priest join us from another country and he is a bit hard to understand as well. However he is the most energetic and enthusiastic one we have. He is starting to become my favorite one because for me he is the one I feel more comfortable talking with.
 
jim6918 said:
A new priest was recently assigned to our parish who is from Africa. Although he studied in the United States and has previous parish assignments in the USA, he is extremely hard to understand. I live in a single parish community, so “church shopping” is not an option, if I were to even use that as an excuse. I focus on his every word, not only in the liturgy, especially during his homilies, but despite my best efforts find myself only absorbing about 75% of what he says. I am sure that there are many elderly people with less than perfect hearing who are having more trouble than I. I have noticed the attendance at my usual Mass is falling off dramatically. Worse, is the guilty feeling that I have when leaving mass that I have somehow not given everything I could to my attention at Mass. I study the readings before Mass, read and listen along with the readers, closely follow the Liturgy in my Missal, but am clearly missing out on what must be prayerful and well thought out homilies. I can’t even imagine how he must feel looking out over a congregation who are zoning out while he speaks.

I know this will be a fact of life of the Church in the USA as vocations in English speaking countries, including the USA, suffer so much.

I would never consider speaking to him because I am sure he is painfully aware of the difficulty people have understanding his accent.

It is clear that Father is reading from a typed Homily, do you suppose that he would be willing to hand out copies for the congregation to read along with? I pray that our ears become more attuned to his accent sometime down the road.
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No.

Homilies are to be heard not read.

75% is pretty good. I bet 75% of people miss more than 75% of what the priest says on Sundays.😉

I know it’s hard to understand peoples’ accents sometimes (I’m a stranger in a strange land myself! And everyone here claims to speak English:p) .
 
jim6918 said:
A new priest was recently assigned to our parish who is from Africa. Although he studied in the United States and has previous parish assignments in the USA, he is extremely hard to understand. I live in a single parish community, so “church shopping” is not an option, if I were to even use that as an excuse. I focus on his every word, not only in the liturgy, especially during his homilies, but despite my best efforts find myself only absorbing about 75% of what he says. I am sure that there are many elderly people with less than perfect hearing who are having more trouble than I. I have noticed the attendance at my usual Mass is falling off dramatically. Worse, is the guilty feeling that I have when leaving mass that I have somehow not given everything I could to my attention at Mass. I study the readings before Mass, read and listen along with the readers, closely follow the Liturgy in my Missal, but am clearly missing out on what must be prayerful and well thought out homilies. I can’t even imagine how he must feel looking out over a congregation who are zoning out while he speaks.

I know this will be a fact of life of the Church in the USA as vocations in English speaking countries, including the USA, suffer so much.

I would never consider speaking to him because I am sure he is painfully aware of the difficulty people have understanding his accent.

It is clear that Father is reading from a typed Homily, do you suppose that he would be willing to hand out copies for the congregation to read along with? I pray that our ears become more attuned to his accent sometime down the road.
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What would be a kind act would be talk to Father, and in around about way ask him would he like some English lessons and that you would provide them, once or twice a week, get some basic books out from your Library for children and see how advance he is, and get books accordingly
to how he reads the children books so you know what level for the next English lesson.
 
I know it must be hard for not only you but others. When communication is affected, it is hard.

I can tell you my experience from living abroad, though, that as hard as it is for you, and the others who are having difficulty, it is probably much harder for him! Do you have any idea how hard it is to be a foreigner in a foreign land, like the Bible says? The Bible specifically mentioned that we must welcome foreigners, since the people of Israel were once also in that situation, and I can tell you. It’s not easy!

I know my first year in Mexico, there was one point I cried everyday! I used to tutor ESL to hispanic ladies. Now, I helped them network, because I knew they were all alone, without their families in a foreign country, foreign culture. Sometimes, before we got them hooked up, they even spent their holidays ALL alone!

He must be trying SO hard. English is a very difficult language! I can tell you, because I’ve taught it to foreigners, so I know. It’s confusing!

With time, his English will probably improve as will your ability to understand that he may have difficulty pronouncing some sounds, or letters. Once you figure out which these are, you probably will understand him better.

If you could see him one-on-one and talk to him like that, he probably would appreciate it.

Other than that, I’d say a missal for the rest of the mass might help but only not for the homily or announcements, of course.

In one parish in the US, we also had a priest from Africa. I ended up leaving there for another reason but once remember trying to reach out to him. I also know a tiny amount of French! Anything anyone can do in a situation like that is helpful! We had people, I think leaving for the same reason, and I felt so badly for him! He really seemed to be a very good priest, trying so hard!

I have had some REALLY positive experiences with people from Africa. They have some VERY nice people! Please, give him one more chance!
 
In the US, years ago, I was a Literacy Volunteers tutor. I’ve been told, since then, it’s been taken over by Pro-Literacy?

Anyway, I know they offered free lessons to people, including foreigners…conversation practice, the works!
 
I don’t think offering your Priest children’s books for English would be kind. Undoubtedly he took English courses at University level prior to serving in the U.S. his first time! Personally, I would consider it an insult, unless I didn’t speak the language at all, or only very poorly. If he can read the Gospels, do the prayers during Mass, and give a homily, he probably knows English at least as well as you do. Some people can get their accent better, and some never do so. I personally speak Spanish with a British/French accent, apparently, from what Spanish friends tell me, and I’m born & raised in the U.S.! I studied French as well as Spanish in college and I guess part of the French accent carried over! Have no idea where or how I might have gained a British accent.

No one has offered me a child’s Spanish book – they just correct me if I’m too far wrong, but that’s because I ask them to. Mostly, they can understand me quite well, and say they LIKE the odd accent.

I think just mentioning to him that if he spoke more slowly it would help you to understand better, he would not be hurt and would certainly understand why! That’s what we did with our Priest the second week, and he smiled and said “if I go too fast, I’ll have someone I pick out before Mass that I can see easily to make a “go slow” sign”. He did, and we’ve all benefited greatly, with no hurt feelings involved.
 
The US is not producing enough priests, so the reality is that more and more, we will probably have more foreign priests…that, or go without!
 
Literacy Volunteers…or Pro-Literacy is also designed for adults. I don’t know if anyone close enough to him would feel comfortable mentioning it to him.
 
Why doesn’t somebody see if he speaks any French and send someone over who speaks French to talk to him if he does?
 
Celtic_Maiden said:
What would be a kind act would be talk to Father, and in around about way ask him would he like some English lessons and that you would provide them, once or twice a week, get some basic books out from your Library for children and see how advance he is, and get books accordingly
to how he reads the children books so you know what level for the next English lesson.
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But it seems that his English is quite good, it’s just the heavy accent that is the problem.
 
leslie85 said:
Judy beat me to it. I was going to advise that you speak to him about maybe slowing down as it does help with pronounciation. We recently had a priest join us from another country and he is a bit hard to understand as well. However he is the most energetic and enthusiastic one we have. He is starting to become my favorite one because for me he is the one I feel more comfortable talking with.
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I agree with this post word for word and just have to quote it 👍
 
Thank you for the many thoughtful replies. I hoped to convey that my frustration is with myself, much more than our priest. It is clear that he is a highly educated, faithful man doing a difficult task with love, dignity and grace. Father uses a wireless system already and speaks distinctly and paced, but not so slow as to be distracting. For his own self esteem, I wish I could help him out without being insulting about his efforts.

I really like the idea of putting his homilies in the bulleting, I think I will suggest it more as a compliment to him than an insult. I hope anyway.

BTW, as I said in my post, I would never think of quitting the parish or going to another city.
 
triumphguy said:
No.

Homilies are to be heard not read.
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I don’t think that’s written in stone is it? A friend of mine often asks our pastor for copies of his homilies, not because she can’t understand him but because she wants to reflect on them more. He’s happy to oblige.
 
There is one other thing I could sugest. I had to learn to understand my best friend in high school who had trouble with her speech. You could try moving up closer so you can be able to see his mouth move while he talks and concentrate on what he is saying. It’s not a fast process. In fact it will probably take a few months or so, but it works.

Sorry if there are any spelling errors. There is no spell check using my phone.
 
We’ve had a couple foreign priests in our parish. I got really tired of hearing how no one could understand them. Although they did have strong accents, you could understand them if you paid attention. One of my favorites was from India. I got tired of all the complaints. I understood him just fine and I think the reason was that I tried harder. I made an effort to not only welcome him and thank him but to engage him in conversation outside of Mass. I believe we need to be patient and understanding and humbly thankful that these men give up so much to come to our country to serve. And to remember that in some cases, if it were not for them doing so, we couldn’t receive Jesus in the Eucharist. And THAT’S the most important thing! So thank Father for being there and help him in any way you can. Pray for him too!
 
mercyangel said:
… thankful that these men give up so much to come to our country to serve.
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They give up life in a third world country, living in a shack, starvation, disease… I welcome them being here, but at the same time I believe the church should have them take more speech lessons… maybe the church puts us through this frustration intensionally to strengthen our prayer life…lol…I’ve seen church attendance go way down because the congregation couldn’t understand the priest… maybe you got the priest from here…
 
To the previous poster-- your comment was quite uncharitable and frankly disrespectful of priests! It sounds as though you have a bias against them because they’re foreign. That’s a shame because like I said before, the most important thing is that they give you the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. Maybe work on appreciating them more simply for that. And if its that big an issue for you, go to Mass elsewhere. We are all called to be Christ-like. This doesn’t sound very much like that. Just my 2 cents.
 
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