-Father Terrance Klein

As I write this, I am on retreat, at the Spiritual Life Center in Wichita, with the other priests who are serving in the Diocese of Dodge City. This morning, I was visiting at breakfast with Father Bernard Felix, the pastor in Larned, who had just returned from a trip home to the Philippines, which he had made with representatives from our diocese. The purpose was to invite other priests from the Philippines to work in southwest Kansas. Father Bernard said that part of the challenge was explaining that they would not be working in the United States, which they see on TV. No skyscrapers. Also, that they would encounter a type of priesthood they had never known before, one in which they would be far from other priests, only able to see fellow priests on rare occasions and after traveling great distances.

This is also the week in which our diocese has announced new clergy assignments. If one reads carefully, one can see that there are parishes such as Scott City and Ashland that remain unaccounted for. We will cover them through the summer with the help of foreign priests who are on vacation in the U.S.

I know that our bishop has struggled mightily with our current situation. We retire two priests this year, after decades of service. (And would any of us ever have a vacation, without our retired priests traveling around the diocese each weekend?)

We didn’t expect to lose one of our foreign priests, who returned to his home country, exhausted by the work that he was doing and finding it very hard to work at such a distance from other priests. This young priest had been driving all over western Kansas, celebrating five Masses each weekend. Sadly, many people can’t imagine what priests do during the week. Ask to shadow one sometime.

We have eight seminarians, and, we are told, may have one or two more before studies start in the Fall. We have every reason to hope that God will bless us with vocations in the future.

In the past, we have always been able to supplement native priests with foreign-born, but the process of acquiring visas has become much more difficult and much slower.

Earlier this year, the bishop asked the pastors of parishes in Barton County to meet and to discuss how we could reduce the number of Masses in our county, as he was forced to withdraw a priest. We currently have 17 Masses on a weekend in Barton County. We must move to 12. We are, percentage wise, a very Catholic county. But can 17 Masses be justified when there are counties in our diocese with only one? Can we leave those counties with no Mass?

For the most part, the parishes of our cluster will not be affected, because there is simply no cutting that can be made. But we need to think of the Church as the place where God has called all of us to work in his harvest. Too many people still think of the parish as the local franchise of the Catholic Church, like the neighborhood McDonalds. They want to have their happy meal when they want it and how they want it. Priests are literally dropping from exhaustion while they complain about having to drive or about not having Mass when they would prefer to have it. Yet people drive all over the state, missing Mass, to take their children to athletic events.

There is no reason to panic or to worry about the future of the Church. God is good, and God will bless us. In the meantime, if you can’t have Mass when you would like it, if you resent that you must listen to a homily delivered by a priest with a thick accent, thank the Good Lord for what you have. Commit yourself more fully to your Catholic faith. Vocations to the priesthood and the religious life begin in the home, with deeply committed and spiritual parents.

There is no reason to feel sorry for your priests. We chose this life, and studies indicate that most of us would choose it again. I remember fretting about whether I had made the right decision, as they began to play the entrance hymn at my ordination. Today, I could quite confidently march down the aisle, towards the ordaining bishop. No vocation can compare with this one. God is so good, and we never give more to God than God gives to us.