Guidelines for Receiving Pastoral Ministers in the USA

different forms of dedication and generosity, which are evident in the ministries and lives of their newly arrived ministers. • When international pastoral ministers arrive to care for their compatriots who are now immi grants and refugees in the United States, they provide the local Church with an occasion to clarify its mission-ministry to immigrant and refugee populations in its territory. In other words, the international pastoral minister’s arrival invites the Church to choose a more precise direction in its ministerial outreach to immigrants and refugees. Is the mission-ministry aim to recreate the “old world” in the new? Is it to be a port of entry for immigrants and ref ugees or to support an easy transition into the new culture? Is the local Church’s ministry to local immigrant and refugee populations meant to be part of a fast-track vehicle of assimilation into the new culture? Or, should it embody the preference of the Catholic bishops of the United States for integration over assimilation? Does the local Church’s mission-ministry have special care for the multigenerational dimen sions of the immigrant experience? The arrival of international pastoral ministers prompt these and other questions that can help a local Church to develop its ministry to immigrants and refugees. Challenges for Receiving Churches Two aspects of the exchange of international pasto ral ministers generate challenges for the ministers themselves and for the receiving communities. They have to do with communication and culture. The challenge of communication can be for midable. Newly arrived ministers may not know English. If they do know the language, they may pro nounce it in a way that is not readily comprehensible to American ears. Even if they know the language and pronounce it clearly, their modes of expression may come across as puzzling or even off-putting. When the ministers and the receiving communities work through these challenges together, both groups benefit from enhanced capacities for listening and speaking. The key to enhanced communication is a spirit of patience and persistence for both ministers and their communities.

Another challenge and grace both for ministers and communities has to do with culture. The arrival of an international pastoral minister brings another culture into a community’s life. International pasto ral ministers may themselves experience significant culture shock when they arrive in the United States. They may feel an initial sense of disorientation. Later, some international ministers can be co-opted by US culture and accept it uncritically. Alternately, they can become hypercritical of US culture and reject it. Between those two poles lies another position of wisely assessing and discerning the lights and shad ows of the new culture that they encounter and rec ognizing that every culture needs to be evangelized. 12 Similarly, receiving communities may immedi ately reject what they perceive as “foreign culture” manifested in their international ministers. These communities may then retreat into provincialism or ethnocentrism or even elements of racism. This is reinforced even by vocabulary itself, when these ministers are called “foreign” rather than “interna tional.” If, in fact, receiving communities listen and learn from the international pastoral ministers sent among them, they can also develop a new under standing of their own culture and both appreciate its positive values and critique its shadows. There are many graces that come to those who cou rageously leave their homelands and generously offer their service in a foreign land. Among these graces are the following: • International pastoral ministers have an expanded experience of the catholicity of the Catholic Church. • Another grace is the opportunity to serve and meet the real needs of people. For those who are committed to their vocation, the opportunity to serve is always a true blessing. • Because of the new set of circumstances, international pastoral ministers can expand and deepen their ministerial or pastoral skills. They can later share these enhancements with others when they return to their own land. Graces for International Pastoral Ministers

12 Evangelii Nuntiandi , no. 20; Ecclesia in America , no. 70.

A-4 | Introduction