No sooner had I finished reading this piece in my diocesan newspaper, describing the orientation and training for visiting priests from Africa and Asia for the summer (including “accent reduction classes”), than I stumbled on this very good editorial via Catholic Onine.

It comes to us from Our Sunday Visitor and reads, in part:

Material and political success may have brought with it a greater provincialism. We tithe less than other faiths. We pay scant attention to the church in other parts of the world. We have almost completely lost our commitment to the missions. Evangelization has become just “church talk.” Though we were an immigrant church, many of us rail at the immigrants. And though we no longer produce enough vocations, many of us grumble when our bishop sends us a priest from Africa or Asia because he has no one else to send.

Yet, these shepherds from far away shores are reminders to us of a greater church than what exists in our parish, or diocese or even nation. The billion Catholics in the world today are a vibrant testimony to the diversity of the church and the universal glory of our savior. For U.S. Catholics in particular, acknowledging that we are all parts of one body – African, Asian, Latin American, European, Eastern rite and Roman rite, immigrant and native born – is an absolutely critical awareness if we are not to be blinded by our own pride, power and wealth.

Many young Catholics already get this, in part because of the amazing phenomenon of World Youth Day. In 2008, it will be held in Australia, and this will be another tremendous opportunity for Catholics to join with their fellows from around the world.

Americans, bounded by two oceans and seemingly a world apart, have always tended toward isolationism. For Catholics such a temptation is to be resisted. We are many members, but one body. Perhaps the priest shortage and the influx of foreign-born priests, like the immigration crisis, are invitations for U.S. Catholics to get over ourselves and see what a Catholic world it truly is.

Yeah, we do need to get over ourselves, don’t we?

Photo: by Linda Busetti, The Brooklyn Tablet