What’s it like to be a missionary in the modern age?

A couple hundred people called to that vocation are gathering to discuss that question this week in Pittsburgh. And, as the local paper describes it, the job is the same, whether it’s in Albania or Albany:

Today’s Catholic missionaries work not only in jungles but in prosperous cities where people have turned from God.

“To start a mission in Seattle is as difficult as starting a new mission in Guinea-Bissau,” the Rev. Guillermo Stecking, international general superior of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, told 250 of his priests, brothers and lay associates gathered in Pittsburgh.

The Oblates, a worldwide order of 4,380 priests, brothers and seminarians, is holding the meeting of its U.S. members this week at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel. Founded in 1816 in France to serve the poor and marginalized, the Oblates established their first U.S. outpost in Pittsburgh in 1847. That historic mission ended three months later in a dispute between the priest and his superior — and this is the first time the order has been back.

Meanwhile, they’ve been busy in 67 nations. Father Steckling, a German who spent 18 years as a missionary in Paraguay before going to Rome, said 80 percent of the order’s 700 seminarians are in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Eastern Europe.

The Oblates preach parish missions — revivals — throughout Poland, often including young laity as speakers. They are also in Belarus, Romania, the Czech Republic and Turkmenistan.

“In these post-communist countries the people are hungry for something spiritual,” Father Steckling said.

The order’s relationship with Orthodox churches varies within those countries, he said. A high point is Romania, where the Oblates have been invited to preach missions in Orthodox churches. Their goal is not to make Catholics of Orthodox but to lead unbelievers to Christ.

“There are so many people there who are nothing,” he said.

In other parts of the world they work among Muslims. In the southern islands of the Philippines they have built schools and housing, while encouraging interfaith dialogue between Christians and Muslims. Two Oblates — one a bishop, the other a priest — have been killed by Islamist separatists there.

“In spite of that, the missionaries hold on and the people want them to stay. It is not the Muslim population that is against us. Often the fanatics are foreigners who come from the outside,” he said.

Curious? Pop by the Oblates’ website and explore. And keep these good people in your prayers.