Nelson,

Just realized that you mentioned an Ethiopian mission. Any details you can provide me as to where it's meeting and how frequently would be appreciated.

Last information that I had was that there is the Ethiopian Catholic presence - actually an Eritrean community - but that it was being afforded no regular pastoral care. If that's changed, I'd love to know.

You can post here or e-mail me - ec_parish_webmaster@yahoo.com
Many years,

Neil

Neil,

Back in the mid 1990's, I visited Our Lady of the Sacred Heart Church in San Diego and I remember being told that the Ge'ez liturgy was celebrated at that parish.

There is a contact person for the Eritrean community in San Diego: www.diocese-sdiego.org/catholic_cultural_groups.aspx

As for the Eritrean community in Los Angeles, the website of the LA archdiocese lists Saint Albert the Great Catholic Church in Rancho Dominguez, CA: www.archdiocese.la/directories/parishes/eastern.html

Hope this helps.

GC,

Thanks very much. It does help. Both of those are new listings since I last checked. At that time, the diocesan offices of ethnic ministry/cultural diversity or somesuch were the only contact points and there were no real indications of any pastoral care being afforded to the communities.

OL of the Sacred Heart is now ministering to Vietnamese and Spanish congregations from what I can find - though E&O liturgies don't usually get a mention unless the serving priest is actually in residence at the church.

I'd love to know how you found the contact list though. No amount of searching the SD site, using 'Eritrean' as a search word, would retrieve that page. I had to keep coming back here for your link.

Nelson,

SD lists only a contact person (and I'm not faulting the Latin diocese for that - it's a definite start).

My suspicion is that the community is being served periodically by a circuit-riding priest. (Abba Ghebriel Woldai, out of SF, is already covering a multitude of missions from SF north to Oregon and Washington; hard to imagine that he could take on anything additional.) If you learn that the community is being served with any regularity, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

Many years,

Neil

Here, I'll show you a trick that a friend of mine showed me.

In the address bar I have:

www.diocese-sdiego.org/

I removed the www. and replaced it with site: so it reads site:diocese-sdiego.org/
Then, I typed in eritrean after it, so it reads site:diocese-sdiego.org/ eritrean

I enter it and -viola!- it found the contact person.

I find this way of searching more thorough than through the search box provided on a website.

To be honest, I use this method to search the Byzcath Forum and find what I am looking for more quickly than the Forum search engine. Sorry!


I do remember learning that the same priest who served in Los Angeles would also drive down to San Diego to celebrate liturgy. That's all I know.

Actually, I'm familiar with this - I learned it somewhere a long time back, but never really got into using it, though I'm not sure why.



LOL - no need to apologize. You won't find me defending our search engine. I'm only able to use it more successfully than many because I have an uncanny memory for keywords, contents, and topics, and, very often, the poster involved. With those considerations out of the way, I focus on putting a timeframe to the search. However, I just might give your method a try next time.





That would make sense - should have put two and two together. Thanks. Now, we'll see if Nelson can come by any definitive info as to the when and the where.

Many years,

Neil

Shlomo Lkhoolkhoon,

What is most frustrating is that if we had the priests and the desire, we would have an active Ge'ez Eparchy here in the U.S. and Canada.

Back in 1997 I spent 2 weeks in Rome and met with the students and rectors at the Ethiopian College on the Vatican grounds. When I came back from Rome I contacted Fr. Steven Armstrong of Our Lady of Fatima Church in San Francisco. He was able to convince the Archbishop of San Francisco to pay for two priests from the college to come to the United States and visit the different Ge'ez Communities here. The out poring was great, 10 or 12 different cities was visited and hundreds of people came to the Divine Liturgies and events in each. What was most disappointing is that NO followup has ever been done.

I feel that we Eastern Catholics should follow the model of the Syriac Orthodox. Appoint an Eparch for an area and have them organize. Further, being the Catholic Church we should have the backup to help our fellow Easterner organize and become solid members of the Church here.

Nearly every single Eastern Catholic Church should have an eparchy here in the U.S. I believe.

Fush BaShlomo Lkhoolkhoon,
Yuhannon

Do these Ethiopians/Eritrians have problems going to their Orthodox churches and why? Never seemed to bother most Rusyns.

Could this be started as a administrative "ordinariate" under an Eastern hierarch? The Eritreans/Ethiopians are close to the Syriac and Malankara Churches liturgically, why not give them easy access to our buildings? Would it be reasonable to bring this up to my Exarch or out there?

Luke,

I don't doubt that some of the Eritrean and Ethiopian Catholics are migrating to their Orthodox counterparts, although I haven't seen any mention of that anywhere.

Ethiopian Catholics themselves are, I believe, fewer in number in the diaspora - at least the US and Canada - than their Eritrean co-religionists. After poring through forums and other venues a couple of years ago, I found not very many distinct Ethiopian Catholic communities across North America, but a substantial number of Eritrean Catholic ones. (The latter are chiefly refugees from the Eritrean civil wars.)

If my perception is incorrect, then I'd have to conclude that Eritreans are much more demonstrative of their Catholicity - the net is replete with evidence of both formal and informal organizing around their faith.

I don't know whether the same disparity of numbers exists between the two Orthodox Churches (the Ethiopian Orthodox also have internal issues resulting from the dispute over their Patriarchy). Among the Orthodox there is the added distinction that Eritreans are closely aligned to the Copts (who afforded them a hierarchy, when the Ethiopians would not), while the Ethiopians set themselves apart from them.

Among the Catholics - although belonging to the same Church sui iuris, the two ethnicities seem to generally form distinct worship communities. In part, it's certainly a function of language - Amharic versus Tigrinya, but it may also be politico-cultural, an artifact of relationships between the two peoples in their homelands.

In places where there are no clergy of their own Church available, I perceive a tendency on the part of Latin ordinaries to relegate the pastoral care of these peoples to the same immigrant clergy who are serving Latin Rite African Catholics. Since bi-ritualism is very prevalent among Ethiopian and Eritrean Ge'ez Catholic clergy, their faithful may be more accustomed to worshipping in a Latin environment than would otherwise be the case.

Michael,

Very honestly, I doubt that you'd find much commonality of liturgical praxis between the Ethiopians/Eritreans and the Syriacs or Malankara, particularly because of the cultural accretions that attend liturgical celebrations in the Ge'ez Tradition, as well as the language issues. The only EC/OC inroads into that geographic region, of which I'm aware, is that of the Melkites into Sudan, which is otherwise missioned only by the Eritreans, and I'm unsure of the scope of that commitment or how cultural issues are being addressed in that instance.

And, the root of the problem - a lack of pastoral care - seems to be most related to a lack of clergy, rather than just the absence of a hierarchy on this continent or the absence of temples. If were only the latter, I'd say it wasn't an insurmountable issue - the Latins generally are reasonably accomodating in affording space for EC/OC missions. (I'm not sure, without reviewing my geographic lists where the population concentrations are vis-a-vis other EC/OC communities.)

Why are there insufficient clergy? I'm not sure whether it's an unwillingness to migrate or a sense on the part of the Ethiopian hierarchy that the average Latin ordinary might be unwilling or unable to provide the necessary financial support - and that relatively few of the communities as yet have the financial werewithal to do so on their own.

Most of the clergy who are here seemingly lead a tough existence, affording sporadic services to cities at some distance from one another and/or to mission stations in several states. Only a few appear to be operating from and remaining at a fixed locale.

Many years,

Neil

Shlomo Neil,

I agree with you about the clergy. They have a number of them, but they do not wish to immigrate to the U.S.

I wish that they African-American priest that we have would be willing to be bi-ritual. Many of the Ge'ez communities are in areas where there are African-American priests. Further, if the American Catholic Church (with both lungs) would be willing to help fund an epachy/exarchy for the Ge'ez Catholic Church that would greatly help. The college is more than willing to have their students come here after studies, and when I have e-mailed the Major-Archeparch he has stated to me that he would be more than happy to work to get us clergy. At the present time, out of the 10 Eparchs of the Ge'ez Church 4 are European. One thing we Easterners can do is advocate for more priests to be become bi-ritual and learn the Ge'ez Divine Liturgy.

Fush BaShlomo,
Yuhannon

Shawn,

Actually, there are only 6 Eparchs, 3 each in Ethiopia and Eritrea, with an additional 1 Auxiliary and 1 Emeritus. Of those 8, only 1 is European - Abuna Thomas (Osman), OFM Cap.

Of 9 bishops (1 Emeritus) serving in the 8 Latin Apostolic Vicariates, 4 are native Ethiopians (there are, as yet, no native Eritrean hierarchs, as far as I know). The remainder are either of European (4) or South American (1) heritage. It is very likely that the 4 are all bi-ritual and possible that the other 5 are as well, given the prevalence of bi-ritualism among the Ethiopians.

Only 3 of the 8 serving in eparchies are diocesan priests and only 2 of the 9 serving in vicariates. The remainder are all members of religious communities, most of which have a strong history in those lands. These include the Capuchins, Jesuits, Comboni, Salesians, and Vincentians.

As regards the African-American clergy, I suspect one issue is language. I don't know of any Ge'ez communities serving in English and am unsure about the readiness of their faithful to do so. As well, I posted a number of years ago that I had encountered a prevalent feeling among Latin Rite African-American faithful that the Ethiopians and Eritreans were too 'native' (for lack of a more acceptable way to describe it) in heir liturgical praxis. (Admittedly, I have heard the same concern voiced about the liturgical praxis of African Catholics of the Latin Rite.)

Many years,

Neil