text: Hi, LG.  I guess I see it as serving the perceived needs and wishes of the Catholics of that time.  They couldn't see 150 years in the future and a regional decline in the numbers of regularly attending/contributing/interested Catholics (which might be even worse now without those parishes then).  But they could see that at that time they had Catholics from other countries who desperately wanted the comfort of the familiar in their churches, and they both wanted to serve those Catholics and worried they would be lost to the Church without that parish belonging. 
  
  We can project and plan for the future but still have to meet the needs of this day.