Fr. Terrance Klein
After his resurrection, Our Lord told Saint Peter, “Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go” (Jn 21:18). This saying comes to my mind with the news that we must begin having Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest (sometimes abbreviated as SCAP) on a regular basis in the Diocese of Dodge City. At least we must for a while. Let’s look at this in broader context.
In many ways, the clustering of so many of our parishes, being served a single pastor, corresponds to other aspects of life in southwest Kansas. Farms have grown larger, though they are tended by fewer and fewer people. Hospitals, school districts, and other agencies have combined as our population, at least our English speaking population, has decreased in the region.
Until now, the diocese has been able to staff its parishes by relying upon the help of foreign priests, who come to serve among us for a period of time agreed upon by their ordinaries. This has its challenges, but it again has its parallels. Read the surnames of physicians, who are working in southwest Kansas. Many were also born in foreign lands.
The diocese has worked hard to make this transition a good one for priest and people. Missionary priests begin their life in the diocese with a seasoned pastor, whose purpose is to help bridge the cultural differences in play. Then they are ready to assume their own work as pastors. Until now, we have been able to raise or lower the number of foreign priests working in the diocese on the basis of our needs.
This is no longer the case. One effect of the Trump administration’s immigration policies has been to slow to a crawl the granting of visas, even to applicants like religious workers, who have always been accepted as providing needed services. Last June, as new assignments were announced, four parishes received no pastor: Coldwater, Ashland, Dighton, and Scott City. Until now they have been served through a rotation of retired priests, visiting missionary priests who return to the diocese during the summer months for a visit, and the bishop himself. Their would-be pastors are still visiting foreign embassies, awaiting permission to come to the diocese.
We have now reached a point where we cannot provide Mass each weekend in these parishes. The bishop, in consultation with the presbyteral council, does not feel that he can deprive these four parishes of Masses for months on end. Instead, he has decided to roll Sundays without a priest throughout the parishes of the diocese. Priests will take turns covering these parishes, leaving their own parishes without Masses for a given weekend.
In his letter to the priests of the diocese, explaining this decision, Bishop Brungardt wrote, “This plan provides all parishes with a sense of connection within our diocesan family. Shared sacrifice. United in Christ. The Celebration provides prayers for priestly vocations. I ask all parishes to include prayers for priestly vocations in every Eucharistic Sacrifice and every Celebration.”
Accordingly, on October 19th and 20th, Saint Joseph in Ellinwood and Immaculate Conception in Claflin will have Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest while I travel to Coldwater and Ashland to celebrate Mass there. When asked to do this, as priest, I immediately said yes. As a pastor, I began to fret. No one likes to be disturbed. Many of our parishioners already “shop” for Masses in the area that best meet their lifestyles. Neither parish can afford to lose a weekend collection.
But the fact remains that, at least for a while, the diocese is back where it began. With communities of Catholics gathering on weekends without a priest, grateful for those occasions when one could be sent to them to celebrate the sacraments. I pray that our two parishes have large crowds on this coming weekend in October, as laymen, who truly have no desire to preside at a service but who have also set aside personal preference, bravely lead you in prayer. There is no Eucharistic prayer in this service, so the "sacrifice" of the Mass is not offered. Communion, from a previous Mass, will be distributed as on Good Friday. Of course you can simply drive over to Great Bend for “your Mass,” but, to my mind, you only send the message that Barton county really only needs one parish.
I firmly believe that the long term future of our diocese and of vocations to the priesthood remains bright. Hopefully a cloudy weekend will encourage us to pray all the more for the sunshine of the Lord’s blessings, especially in vocations to the priesthood.
