"I had supposed we'd be here last Easter," he said.
But Morgan and the evangelical, conservative parish discovered that a Greater Power had to bless his ministry in the United States.
Not the Father, but the Uncle. Uncle Sam.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) takes a longer, closer look these days at foreign clergy seeking permanent residence. Those who pass muster must then seek visas, which can also take months.
"The process is much more intense now than it used to be," said Jill Mathis, since 1999 the canon for transition ministry in the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. She sees to it that parishes have interim clergy when they are between rectors.
Calling a candidate from abroad used to take about five months for immigration and visa processing, she said. Now, it often drags on for 10 months or more and "really seems to be getting worse."
The diocese, which comprises Philadelphia and the four surrounding Pennsylvania counties, now uses a Center City law firm, Bagia & Associates, to help bring foreign clergy into the country.
"I gather the people at Immigration felt there's been a lot of fraud," said Shelley Grant, a Bagia lawyer who handled Morgan's application.
Religious workers are considered a "preferred" class of applicants, Grant said, but in some cases, "people would have a little corner church in back of a grocery store and then sponsor their friends and relatives." Once in the United States, she said, the new arrivals would find other jobs.
The website of a California-based immigration lawyer tells of a man with a religious-worker visa who drove a taxi 80 hours a week.
