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Introduction | A-5
• Because of the unique circumstances of leaving
one’s homeland and serving in a foreign land,
international pastoral ministers can experience
a special growth in their spiritual journey. They
can grow especially in detachment from the
familiar, thereby developing greater reliance on
God’s providential care.
Challenges for International
Pastoral Ministers
The graces and benefits that international pastoral
ministers experience are genuine and real and so
too are the challenges that accompany their arrival
in the United States. These challenges, which may
affect them both personally and ecclesially, can
become incentives for their human and pastoral
development. International pastoral ministers face
the following challenges:
• One very significant challenge is the experience
of uprooting oneself from one’s native culture
and the familiar patterns of ordinary life.
• A related challenge is maintaining the founda-
tional relationships of one’s life, especially with
family, friends, and colleagues in one’s native
place. The challenge is to find ways of appro-
priately maintaining and even cultivating those
relationships, despite the physical distance that
can be a formidable barrier.
• International ministers must also establish new
networks of relationship and connection in their
new circumstances. Not to do so would invite an
unhealthy experience of isolation and loneliness.
• There are specific issues of “novelty” in local
concepts, practices, and customs that interna-
tional pastoral ministers will often encounter in
the United States. They pose a challenge first of
understanding and then of adaptation. Among
these novel concepts, practices, and customs, are
the following:
0 The style of exercising pastoral authority in a
parish setting
0 Social/interpersonal boundaries and styles of
communication
0 The role and place of women in society, cul-
ture, and in the Church in the United States
0 The use of and approach to time
0 The acquisition and use of money, including
easy access credit with bank cards and widely
available possibilities for gaming
0 The litigious nature of American society
0 Ecumenism and interfaith relationships in a
pluralistic society
0 The place of devotions in the life of the Church
0 Patterns of collaboration in ministry between
clergy and laity
0 Taking pastoral initiative
• Because of the disruption of moving, international
pastoral ministers will find maintaining continu-
ity in their spiritual lives a special challenge.
• For those returning to their native lands, it may
be very challenging to transition back to a for-
mer set of circumstances after their experience
in the United States.
IV. Purpose, Scope, and
Overview
The purpose of the
Guidelines
is to be a practical tool
for dioceses, eparchies, seminaries, and institutes of
consecrated life and societies of apostolic life as they
work to formulate their own policies and procedures
concerning international pastoral ministers, whether
they are invited here to serve the Church at large
or to more specifically serve immigrants from their
native land. The
Guidelines
are meant to encourage
the development of these policies. In this context,
the
Guidelines
are designed for general information
only. Each diocese, eparchy, seminary, institute, and
society is unique, as is each international pastoral
minister. In developing their own particular policies,
these entities need to utilize their own competent
consultants especially in the areas of canon law, civil
law, psychological screening, and financial concerns.
Because the international pastoral ministers
who are among us now and who will come to us
in the future reflect a wide and varied background,
the scope of the
Guidelines
includes those who are:
international clergy, seminarians, and non-ordained
men and women in institutes of consecrated life and
societies of apostolic life for the Latin Church and
Eastern Catholic Churches
sui iuris
.
The
Guidelines
are divided into two main
parts entitled “Assessment and Acceptance” and