In the year of his arrival in the United States, Beschter was assigned as a priest to St. Mary's Church in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.[1] By the following year, he had been made pastor of the church,[2] making him the only Jesuit pastor of St. Mary's following the restoration of the Society in America.[8] Though assigned to St. Mary's, he drew the praise of Archbishop Carroll for simultaneously ministering to three congregations in the area, which comprised American, German, and Irish parishioners.[4] His appointment as pastor quieted an existing quarrel within the parish over the nationality and language of the pastor.