23. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century economic conditions led to the emigration of many Ruthenians from Galicia to the U.S.A., Canada and South America. Our predecessor Pius X was therefore fearful that these beloved sons, not knowing the language of the place and unaccustomed to Latin rites, might be caught by the fallacies of heretics and schismatics, or might be ensnared by doubt and error and miserably abandon all religion. In 1907, therefore, he appointed a bishop with special faculties for them. Later on, since the number and the needs of these Catholics were increasing, a special ordinary bishop was appointed for Galician Catholics in the U.S.A., and another in Canada, besides the ordinary bishop for the faithful of this rite who had emigrated from the Podkarpatska Rus, Hungary or Jugoslavia. Since then, both the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda and that of the Eastern Church have issued opportune and appropriate decrees regulating the ecclesiastical affairs of the Ruthenians in these jurisdictions and in the South American countries.