Guidelines for Receiving Pastoral Ministers in the USA

Initiating a Formal Process for Priests and Deacons When a US diocesan or eparchial bishop determines that the grave lack of clergy within his diocese or eparchy requires the services of an international priest or deacon, he is to make his petition known to the competent diocesan or eparchial bishop or major superior. His request should explain the underlying need for the cleric’s service and express an expecta tion that the candidate will possess sufficient health, probity of life, and the qualifications necessary to perform the ministry or apostolic work. The sending diocesan or eparchial bishop or major superior should indicate the particular gifts, skills, and personal dispositions that would make the potential international pastoral minister an effective minister in the United States. He should also offer assurance that the candidate possesses sufficient health, probity of life, and the qualifications required for the fulfill ment of the service. This assessment is derived from the bishop or major superior’s personal knowledge of the cleric and the cleric’s written record and follows an inquiry of knowledgeable persons who can offer an assessment of the cleric’s suitability for ministry within the United States. The assessment should identify whether the cleric being proposed for ministry has ever exhibited behavior that is criminal or morally reprehensible, including but not limited to sexual mis conduct of any kind, violations of celibacy, substance abuse, physical abuse, financial improprieties, or any condition that could impair effective ordained min istry. While it may not be possible for the receiving diocesan or eparchial bishop to visit with a potential candidate in person before making a final determina tion, modern technologies can provide suitable alter natives for conducting an initial assessment. Once a mutually agreeable candidate has been identified, a written agreement is then to be drawn up between the diocesan or eparchial bishop of the receiv ing diocese or eparchy and the diocesan or eparchial bishop or major superior of the sending diocese, eparchy, institute, or society. The practice of a cleric directly offer ing his service to a diocesan or eparchial bishop, without the support or approval of his own diocesan or eparchial bishop or major superior, is always to be avoided. Establishing a Personnel File When an international cleric is received within a par ticular Church in the United States, a personnel file

number of the faithful of that Church sui iuris . The eparchial bishop may write to an eparchial bishop or major superior of an institute or soci ety in the traditional territories, where there is a sufficient number of priests, to ask for a suit able and qualified priest to serve in the United States for an initial period of three years. In his letter, the US eparchial bishop would note that it is important that the priest be in good health, have probity of life, a facility with English, and be comfortable with US culture. He might fur ther specify that the priest have administrative capabilities, being able to lead a parish that is relatively young and in need of raising funds to build permanent facilities, including a church, parish hall, and rectory. • A diocesan bishop of a Latin Church diocese in the United States that has a significant number of Eastern Catholic faithful with no local hierarch or proper pastor might write to an eparchial bishop or major superior of that Eastern Catholic Church sui iuris . He would request that a well-prepared and suitable priest come to his diocese to provide pastoral care for the Eastern Catholic faithful. • A diocesan bishop in the United States seeks the service of a permanent deacon from a Central American diocese to coordinate the Hispanic Ministry office of the diocese for a period of five to seven years. Although a few incardinated permanent deacons in the diocese have some facility with Spanish, the bishop judges that at the present time he cannot afford to take any of these deacons away from their full-time parish ministry to run the diocesan office. • In view of the most recent census data, a diocesan bishop in the United States may consider that the growing Vietnamese population within his diocese could benefit from the establishment of two addi tional parochial schools. Following the recom mendation of the pastors of the selected parishes, the bishop may determine to request the tem porary service of a group of sisters from Vietnam to assist the faithful with their transition to the United States and to teach in the new schools. In each of these examples, the temporary ser vice of the international cleric or religious institute members was evaluated by the diocesan or eparchial bishop for its usefulness in responding to a genuine pastoral need of the Church in the United States.

B-2 | Canon Law Considerations