Mission Country

I was futzing around on the USCCB sites, and a document entitled "Guidelines for Receiving Pastoral Ministers" caught my eye.

"Receiving ministers"? what does that mean?

So, I follow a link... oh.

There's a book, for the love o'mike, a whole little booklet on how to go about finding, acquiring, vetting and credentialing priests and religious from other countries to serve in this nation.

When I was little my sister who was going to college in Florida wrote home, and  laughed about all the Irish priests here, "They're missionaries! They think the US is still mission territory!"

You know, we laughed, because we're a backward land, without resources. We need to import our religious, ha ha ha ha ha ha.....

And so we do.

Not laughing now.