Feb 12, 2010: The Catholic Church in central Queensland is preparing to welcome three Indian priests to the region to make up for a shortfall of Australian clergymen.

Rockhampton's Bishop Brian Heenan has just returned from India where he has been able to recruit three priests to his diocese.

The Bishop says a fall in the number of Australian priests has had the local clergy stretched to the limit.

"They need to take some time out so we'll survive until these men come," he said.

"But when they come it'll be a great blessing for us."

Father Matthew Moloney from the Blackall Tambo Parish has been travelling hundreds of kilometres each weekend.

"It's a large area and obviously with the distances you just don't get to see people as often," he said.

The new priests are expected in the region by the end of the year.

Father Matthew Moloney, from the Blackall Tambo Parish, services five churches in the region.

He travels at least 200 kilometres every weekend to visit a community and says the priests will provide some much needed relief.

"It's even just difficult having a day off," he said.

"If there are a few extra priests around to be able to do that ... that you can take a day off and people still have somebody that they can go to, that takes a lot of pressure off people and gives them a bit of leeway to do that and to take time off.

"If you're simply away at a meeting that you know that somebody's there to take up a bit of slack."

Bishop Brian Heenan says the priests will undergo voice training.

"Their accent is the challenge," he said.

"They speak perfect English but to understand them is the next challenge, so what we will be doing [is] we'll be helping them with speech therapists and other people who specialise in that area to say the words differently or to articulate them differently.

"That's the kind of training that I think is happening all over Australia now for priests who are coming from overseas countries." (By Maria Hatzakis)