Hello to you all. My name is Fr. Scott Wallisch, and I am newly ordained priest for the Archdiocese of Kansas City, KS. In case you don't know me or weren't aware, my friend Fr. Mitchel decided over a year ago that he and I should celebrate my ordination by going to the World Cup in South Africa. I thought about his offer for about 8 seconds and then agreed. We essentially received the blessing of our wonderful Archbishop when he declared in his homily at my ordination that we were going to South Africa to minister to the long-suffering American soccer fans. It's a hard job, but we decided to take it on.
We decided to go for the first two weeks of the tournament, and we got tickets for the first three U.S. games. We also decided that we should get to know the country, its history, and the Catholic Church and her work here, especially to the many poor.
By God's wonderful providence, I met a family last summer at my parish in Kansas City who live in South Africa and very graciously offered to accommodate us. The Andrews are great!!!
There were a lot of people that I talked to who were excited about our trip and wanted to know all about it, so I decided to set up this blog. I hope that this won't be a painful, boring, stream-of-consciousness blog. If you find it to be so, I give you permission to, well, not read it. Otherwise, follow our journey and let me know if you have any comments or questions.
Father Scott:
ReplyDeleteThis itinerant script is so cool. I remember the Bishop saying that to you about being in Africa. That was funny. I am not a soccer fan but I can appreciate your sheer joy at being there. Like you said, you have to be there. I liken it to your Ordination and a Canonization that I was privileged to attend in Rome. I was wondering if you could do the same thing - that is a script of your journey as a priest. That would be great. Please think about it.
Your sister in Christ,
Mary Lou