The New York Times reports on the shortage of priests in the Roman Catholic Church in the US and efforts to recruit clergy from overseas. The story relates the challenges and benefits of international clergy:
“If we didn’t get international priests,” he said, “some of our guys would have had five parishes. If one of our guys were to leave, or God forbid have a heart attack and die, we didn’t have anyone to fill in.”
In the last six years, he has brought 12 priests from Africa, Asia and Latin America who are serving in this diocese covering the western third of Kentucky, where a vast majority of residents are white. His experiences offer a close look at the church’s drive to import foreign priests to compensate for a dearth of Americans, and the ways in which this trend is reshaping the Roman Catholic experience in America
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Read it all here with links, a slide show, graphics, and charts.