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Long Island’s International Priests
WSHU requested a two part series on international priests serving Long Island churches. The first part looks at the notion of a priest shortage, whether it actually exists on the island, and why international priests are being used to fill it:
The second part profiles a priest from Nigeria and asks if international priests are the best solution for the priest shortage:
Long Island is different than other parts of the country in how foreign priests are used. Miami, for example, isn’t as pressed for priests so they have relatively few priests from nations that are distinctly foreign. They don’t even bother to track how many international priests they have because they blend so well with the laity.
But Long Island fits a pattern where priests are used either to service immigrant populations or to fill shortages. This makes them unique and arouses problems with language and culture.
Posted by 1000monkeys on October 15, 2005 07:40 PM