Father Gallagher Back in South Dakota, May Sabotage Stimulus

Father Cathal Gallagher was the subject of great to-do in the South Dakota media last spring, when government foul-ups led to the Irish priest's uprooting from a happy congregation in DeSmet and near deportation before people power got Washington to wake up and issue the good father a green card.

Now that Sioux Falls paper reports Father Gallagher will be spending some time in South Dakota, filling a role that seems to suit him well, filling in from parish to parish, helping out wherever and whenever he's needed. Father Gallagher does seem to have a little circuit rider in him. He says he's used to traveling so much so that he still hearkens to his missionary days in Japan, "where the unwritten rules was to never accumulate more belongings than one could carry" [Josh Verges, "Irish Priest Returns to South Dakota," that Sioux Falls paper, 2009.02.20].

Now you know why the government wanted to deport him: it wasn't his nationality, but his anti-consumerism. Go around preaching against materialism like that, and who knows what would happen to the economy and sales tax revenues!