Newsday article on priests ministering to the Spanish-speaking population in Long Island.

Amazing. An article on this subject that doesn’t reference how much more fantastic the Protestants are doing in this regard.

In many parts of the country, seminary education has a heavy bilingual flair to it, and seminarians must learn how to say Mass in both English and Spanish.

The scene today is not identical to the earlier periods of mass Catholic immigration into the US, but I do think it’s important to note a rather important difference between then and now: the absence of relatively large numbers of religious women to serve these folks. The priests never did it alone, and in fact, the religious women probably did most of it. Who’s filling that space today?