In a remote corner of Ethiopia, Father Owen Lambert says Mass to a paltry congregation of just 50 souls in a parish of 70,000. His colleague, Father Brendan Cogavin, has not baptised a new Catholic in at least five years. Pretty poor missionaries - by traditional standards, at any rate.
But the two Irishmen refuse to see it that way. They are part of a bold missionary experiment that has won them a reputation as ecclesiastical renegades, provoking the censure of the local hierarchy and wrath of Rome.
Father Cogavin and a small group of Holy Ghost Fathers have devoted their energies to pushing converts in the door of the traditionally rival Ethiopian Orthodox Church. It has won them few friends among the local hierarchy, who would prefer the missionaries to concentrate on boosting the meagre Catholic population.
"Catholics here cannot cope with it. In some ways we are treated as traitors," says Father Cogavin, a Dubliner. "But we're not in the numbers game."
The first Holy Ghost Fathers, or Spiritans, arrived in Ethiopia in 1972 with the usual missionary ideals - to build Catholic schools, hospitals and churches. But they got a frosty reception from the Ethiopian Orthodox clergy, who regarded them as "sheep rustlers" - out to steal their flock.
The Orthodox clergy were wary of the Catholics' deep pockets compared with their own meagre resources. One in two Ethiopians - 30 million people - is Orthodox, while there are just 600,000 Catholics. History, in the form of earlier waves of aggressive Catholic evangelisation, had also put them on their guard.
"It would be as if Orthodox priests tried to come to Connemara - what on earth would people think of them?" says Father Lambert, a pioneer of the programme in 1974. "But we wonder why we're not greeted with a red carpet when we come to a developing country."
The Spiritans set about tackling that suspicion by "going native" - studying the Orthodox theology and traditions, learning their language and, most controversially, actively encouraging Orthodox vocations. The remote province of Gamo Gofa, bordering Kenya, became the "laboratory" for their experiment.
Twenty-five years later the programme is going strong. They pay to train Orthodox priests, have a theological input into seminarian programmes and recently signed a contract to fund the second allfemale monastery.
But it has been an uphill struggle. The Spiritans find themselves caught between the Orthodox hierarchy, which suspects them of being "wolves in sheep's clothing" and the local Catholic church, which has branded them as "black sheep".
"They are appreciated in Gamo Gofa, cynics will say because they brought a lot of money. But on a national level they are appreciated by neither the Catholic nor Orthodox hierarchies," says Dr Abuna Berhanejesus Souraphiel, the Catholic Archbishop of Ethiopia.
The charge of refusing to baptise Catholics is emphatically denied by the Spiritans. "We're not bringing in crowds of Catholics but we have done baptisms," says Father Cogavin. "But the way we look at it, it doesn't matter if you are baptised Orthodox or Catholic. You're still a Christian."
As well as being showered with official opprobrium, the priests are at loggerheads with their local bishop, Dr Dominico Marinozzi. An Italian from the Capuchin order, Bishop Marinozzi advocates traditional methods of mission work and heads have clashed recently.
"We can't do anything with the bishop. He doesn't want to listen; he just wants to give orders," says Father Cogavin.
The bishop appears to be having his way. Word has just arrived that two priests in Gamo Gofa are being given their marching orders by Rome. Frenchman Father Emmanuel Fritsch, the head of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Ethiopia, is one of them.
Father Fritsch is dismayed at the news but claims the Spiritans' controversial work is solidly rooted in Vatican II and the words of the Pope himself. The walls of his study in the capital Addis Ababa are crammed from floor to ceiling with books and newspaper cuttings on Catholic theology.
"This is not just our philosophy. It's the most official teaching of the Catholic Church," says Father Fritsch, prising reference books from the shelves.
One text, entitled Pro Russia and which was drawn up after the collapse of the USSR, lays out clear guidelines for evangelical co-operation. "Should circumstances permit, the pastors of the Catholic Church should endeavour [to develop] pastoral initiatives of the Orthodox Church."
In an address in 1993 to the head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, Dr Abuna Paolas, the Pope said the two churches should work together in the pastoral domain "so as not to put any obstacles in the way of the preaching of the gospel". Fine words are one thing but putting that spirit of ecumenism into practice on the ground is entirely another, the Spiritans feel. "In Ethiopia, the Protestants are the enemy, Islam is the danger, and the Orthodox Church is the prey," says Father Fritsch.
But the Spiritans have sometimes met with a thankless response for their efforts from the Orthodox side, too. They have been accused of buying priests and were once temporarily barred from Orthodox services.
"The Orthodox see us as sneaky Catholics trying to get in the back door and then strike. But so far we haven't, so they are confounded," says Father Cogavin.
When we visit an Orthodox priest whom Father Cogavin has befriended in a slum of Addis Ababa, the priest politely declines to be photographed with the Irishman. "He is afraid he will be victimised later for it. Now you see real ecumenism in action," Father Cogavin remarks with a sigh.
The Catholic Church has only itself to blame. Forced conversions encouraged by Portuguese Jesuits in the 16th century sparked a civil war. Despite this some orders continued to engage in "fishing expeditions" to win Catholic converts.
But the Spiritans are not entirely without friends. In Rome they have the full support of their superior, Father Pierre Schouver, and of Cardinal Edward Cassidy, head of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
On the other side of the argument is the Czech Cardinal Joseph Tomko, head of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples. He gave the order for Father Lambert and Father Fritsch to leave Gamo Gofa.
"Christ told us to go after quality and vision, not numbers," says Father Lambert. "We're not just missioners, we are pilgrims for humanity."