Meanwhile, the Church Scrapes the Bottom of the Barrel for Priests

Maybe it is because gays no longer need to hide within the priesthood, or maybe it's because more and more young Catholics recognize the hypocrisy, corruption and rot at the heart of the Church's leadership, but whatever the cause, the Roman Catholic Church is desperate for priests and is now importing priests form Africa among other places to fill the void. From my experience growing up Catholic, the vast majority of Catholic priests have no clue whatsoever on issues faced by modern American families or the strains experienced by married couples with families. Instead, they think they have it tough living with a housekeeper, possessing more funds to spend upon themselves than most married men, and having church women kiss their asses and look after them. And that's priests born and raised in the USA. Now, because nearly no one wants to go into the priesthood and because the Church excludes woman, married men and normal gays, the Church has resorted to importing foreign born and raised priests who will be even less competent to counsel their American parishioners. One can only hope that in time this type of idiocy will be the harbinger of further declines in Catholic Church membership - loss of members and money are the only thing that registers with the Vatican. Would that the Episcopal and Lutheran Churches would begin a marketing campaign to disaffected Catholics. Here are highlights from the New York Times on the importation of priests:

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Father Oneko [from Kenya] is part of a wave of Roman Catholic priests from Africa, Asia and Latin America who have been recruited to fill empty pulpits in parishes across America. They arrive knowing how to celebrate Mass, anoint the sick and baptize babies. But few are prepared for the challenges of being a pastor in America.

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Father Oneko, 46, had never counseled parishioners like those he found here at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church. . . . . To the volunteers at St. Michael’s, it was clear that Father Oneko was out of his element in many ways.

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In fact, the flow of priests from the developing world to Europe and the United States amounts to a brain drain: most of those developing countries have far fewer priests in proportion to Roman Catholics than the United States does. Father Oneko’s situation in Kenya, serving 12 parishes simultaneously, was not unusual.

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Father Oneko arrived at St. Michael’s on the heels of a Nigerian priest who had been helping out temporarily. Father Oneko said he was unnerved to hear that the Nigerian had not been a resounding success. Parishioners complained that they could not understand his accent.

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He did not tell the parishioners that in Kenya and Jamaica, he had been a charismatic Catholic, participating in faith healings and leading Masses with spirited singing and clapping that lasted for hours.