Missionary Priests in the Homeland: Our Call to Receive

by Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, and Bishop Richard Henning

International priests have served the Roman Catholic Church in the United States since its inception. With congregations consisting largely of immigrants or Spanish and French speaking Catholics absorbed by the expansion of US territory, it was only natural that the clergy reflected the remarkable mixture of ethnicities in the Church. New communities lacked the ‘home-grown’ vocations of more established communities, and the nascent Church needed to recruit or welcome priests and religious from other countries and cultures. It is for these priests and their missionary zeal that this book came to be.
 
Paperback: $24.95 | Kindle: $9.99

Archbishop Richard G. Henning of the Archdiocese of Boston received the pallium from Holy Father Pope Leo XIV on June 29, 2025.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Dr. Sebastian Mahfood, OP, is Associate Director of the Parresia Project and retired Vice-President of External Affairs and Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Holy Apostles College & Seminary in Cromwell, CT.
 
Dr. Mahfood has worked for almost two decades in US seminaries and theological institutes advancing the work of missionary priests and seminarians from around the globe.
 
In addition to his work with missionary priests and seminarians in the U.S., Dr. Mahfood has made possible the enrollment at Holy Apostles of five dozen Eritrean priests, religious sisters, and lay ministers in the pursuit of their graduate studies 100% online. He served as Provost of the Sacred Heart Institute in Huntington, NY, from 2012 to 2023. He is presently assisting the Christian Social Services Commission and Diocese of Tabora, Tanzania, in the development of an online educational program of studies. He serves as the senior co-chair of the Faith-Based Online Learning Directors group.

The Most Reverend Richard G. Henning, STD is a native of Long Island, New York, where he was ordained to the priesthood for the Diocese of Rockville Centre in 1992. After pastoral work in English and Spanish at St. Peter of Alcantara Parish, he began graduate studies in biblical theology, earning a Licentiate at the Catholic University of America and a Doctorate at the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.

Bishop Henning served for ten years as a Professor at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception. During those years, Bishop Henning partnered with Dr. Sebastian Mahfood to establish and oversee the Parresia Project. This multi-year project provided conferences for clergy personnel and formation leaders and promoted the incorporation of distance learning methodologies into the process of providing orientation to arriving international priests and the communities they serve.

In 2012, Bishop Henning was appointed Director of the Sacred Heart Institute for the Ongoing Formation of the Clergy. While serving as an adjunct Professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, he was also entrusted with the direction of a major retreat house on Long Island at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception.

In 2018, Pope Francis appointed Bishop Henning as an auxiliary bishop to the Diocese of Rockville Centre, where he served as a regional Vicar and Vicar for Pastoral Planning and Parish Evangelization. He is a trustee of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Yonkers, NY, and the chair of the board of trustees at the Josephinum Pontifical Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. In the USCCB, he serves on the Doctrine Committee, the Subcommittee on Translation of Scripture Text, and the Subcommittee of National Collections for the Church in Latin America. He was named Bishop of Providence, RI, in 2023, and Archbishop of Boston in 2024. 

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