Where are the American born priests?

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Well, our priest in this parish is American grown (from the diocese itself, to boot) and in the 5 years we’ve been here, we’ve never had a single visit and when my mom was diagnosed with lung cancer she never had a visit (thankfully after prolosurgery she is considered cured) from him; the priest from the parish two cities over heard the news and came right over to give her a blessing. So I sympathize; it stinks when nobody ‘bothers’ the elderly/ill, but I don’t think it’s something cultural so much as it is the person himself. Priests are only human and sometimes they will make mistakes.
 
I’m probably just letting off steam, but the constant demand for money or time, despite not being able to provide either, makes us feel less part of the community.

Also, my wife and myself have had some problems with this priest in confession.

Jim
 
That’s ok, it’s better to let it off, and then hopefully as I said things will get better. I know. Some days one does feel as though everything is always one-sided giving, but again, hopefully things will get better.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
other than to say, after being sick for three months, I was never visited in the hospital and only received one phone call to get well.
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When my dad was in the hospital about 15 times and my mom was in the hospital about a half dozen times, none of the parish priests ever showed up, except the one time I thought my mom might die so I called for last rites and the assigned hospital priest was busy so the pastor showed up.

Interestingly, the priest who did show up and visit my dad frequently was then-Auxiliary Bishop Lyke, who also visited my high school a lot. We didn’t know him or anything, he apparently was just a very kind person who did a lot of hospital ministry. He later became Archbishop of Atlanta and then tragically died young of cancer. I still think of him fondly and pray for his soul because he is the only priest I remember taking an interest in visiting my dad.
 
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It was different when I was growing up

The parish priests visited my parents when my father got sick and certainly visited when either was in the hospital

My surgery with colon cancer 8 years ago, the former pastor visited me in the hospital. He even gave me last rites.

Maybe I just have to get use to the change

Jim
 
You were fortunate. My dad’s hospitalizations were all in the 70s and 80s. There were priests who did hospital chaplaincy but in all the years of my parents attending Mass weekly when they weren’t in the hospital and my mom volunteering for everything and ending up President of the Women’s Guild, I don’t remember a single parish priest ever bestirring himself to the hospital to see my dad. I’m honestly not sure if any of them even asked how he was doing. If you weren’t one of the handful of parish people who were all buddy-buddy with the priests, they didn’t much bother with you in those days despite us having about 3 to 5 of them at a time back then.
 
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It is if that’s the reason why they became a priest and in order to get a free ticket to the USA.

Jim
 
If they became priest for the wrong reason, they won’t do a good job and will eventually violate their vows, I have no doubt about it and have already seen it.

Jim
 
There are also plenty of American-born priests who clearly became priests for the wrong reason. Some of them even advanced to bishop and cardinal status.

I’m not going to single out one group of immigrant priests and start pointing fingers at them, when the whole reason the immigrant priests are here is because our homegrown men and priests have fumbled the ball or dropped it outright in one million ways.

I’m done with this thread as I am not comfortable with what seems to be an agenda to criticize certain priests.
 
I’m not sure how old you were… but several decades ago the ratios of priest to laity were very different. That’s a huge factor.
 
Repeating something that I don’t understand saying it the same way is still not understandable. Nothing wrong with asking him of course, or asking him ‘are you saying this?’ But if you don’t understand the response, there’s an added stress to the stress of trying to have a good confession.

After hearing the readings, so a person can guess the context of the homily, I have said that I got maybe 30% of what he said, but couldn’t put enough of it together to make sense of it. Maybe the homily would be around 20 to 25 minutes.

I imagine that the folks attending who have English as their second language would not pick up anything at all.

It is what it is. People who want to learn more about their faith tend to use the internet anyway to find excellent speakers who will speak on the topic they wish to hear more about.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
I’m not going to single out one group of immigrant priests and start pointing fingers at them, when the whole reason the immigrant priests are here is because our homegrown men and priests have fumbled the ball or dropped it outright in one million ways.
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👏 👏 👏

I think there are plenty of causes to point to in answering why the priest shortage disproportionate affects certain countries more than others such that we need to import our priests. Far too many to succinctly list in this thread probably.

In many ways I think us Americans are still riding on the coattails of that golden age of vocations from the 50s and 60s such that we really don’t appreciate how dire and unsustainable the situation is now. Because we’re right there just about to go over the event horizon we take the status quo for granted.

I recommend everyone at some point in the liturgical year, perhaps during their (arch)diocesan annual appeal, to look up their own statistics regarding number of Catholics therein, the number of men entering the seminary, and the number actually ordained for that given year. It’s so easy to complain about cultural differences, language barriers, perceived snubbing, among other things when you still don’t realize just how incredibly fortunate you are to have a priest administering any Sacraments at all.
 
This is a beautiful, completely unselfish sentiment my friend. I applaud you!
 
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Tacorock1 said:
New priests in my diocese in southern NM have been from Nigeria for the last 7 or so years. Not an issue really except for some their accents and very thick and hard to understand. Who chooses where foreign priests go? I know the calling to priesthood is down in the U.S. but is it even occurring? Has the molestation scandals have anything to do with it?
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My understanding is that there’s a lot fewer people in the US becoming priests, so to keep up with demand they have to bring in priests from countries that have more priests than are necessary.

I’m guessing that Nigeria and India are particularly popular to pull from for the US because a lot of people there know English (English is the most popular language in Nigeria and the second most popular in India) and they both have a high Catholic populations. It’s true that percentage-wise there’s not that many Catholics, but both countries have a very large total population so you end up with the total count of Catholics being fairly high. Thus if you want English-speaking Catholic priests, they’re your go-to countries to get them from. Unfortunately, they also have very different accents from the US.
 
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Well we got 2 here in NZ. They might regard it as a penance …lol. Mostly , we understand them. We got others too where accents can be tricky. Thankfully, the Mass is in Latin and we all understand that.
 
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If you are in the USA remember that the vast majority of our ancestors were immigrants at one time, scorned most likely by others because of their accents and lack of understanding the culture. I had an ancestor who was a priest from the Old World who emigrated and served among Italians, Irish, Germans, and Czechs in NYC. No doubt some had the same complaint of “not understanding him.” Me? I’m just eternally grateful that I live in a time and place where there are lots of priests, ample Sunday and daily Masses, daily Confession, etc. I don’t care in the least what country they are from or what accent they have. I have no fewer than 7 Catholic Churches within 6 miles of my home. I predict it will not be like this in the future after I am gone, but God has seen fit to give me an embarrassment of riches. And I am grateful.
 
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I know right?!

I can practically throw a rock from my front porch and hit a Catholic Church. It’s wonderful and makes me realize how lucky I am to be alive at exactly this moment in history.
 
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