S
SAVINGRACE
Guest
Amen thank you. 
Thanks also to all of you who pray for more Priests. Please keep praying with me for more, our parish priest has a huge area to cover and he needs help.
Quite a long article. Very interesting read. I cherry picked what I found interesting particularly wrt to attendance at Mass and participation by laypeople. The noticeable increase is happening in neighbouring dioceses and our diocese.
**"Father Brendan Lane didn’t see this coming. Twenty years ago, the number of young men training to be Catholic priests in the seminary had dwindled to about 20. Lane, the silver-haired priest who heads the Corpus Christi College, saw an institution in decline.
“I thought with attitudes as they were, we’re finished,” says Lane, then a parish priest. Two decades on, and the priest of 41 years has witnessed a transformation, a revival in interest in the priesthood that means he doesn’t have enough rooms at the seminary, and an appeal to fund an extension will be launched.
At last count, this year will see close to 60 men in training to be priests in Melbourne alone – the highest number since the early 1970s. Across Australia, the number is more than 150.
This is striking, counter-intuitive news. For the past decade, the Catholic Church has been shaken by revelations of the sexual abuse of children by clergy, and worse, the covering-up of the crimes and the protection of the offenders. To be a Catholic – let alone a priest – meant dealing collectively with this stain, this shame.
The logical conclusion would be a priesthood and church in decline. Yet a different and surprising picture is emerging, partly demonstrated each morning at 6.45am in a pocket of Carlton, where in the bluestone chapel at Corpus Christi, every pew is filled by men called to the priesthood.
“This turnaround has been a real surprise I think to us, especially with the bad publicity,” says Lane.
“I think it probably works in a reverse way. It says that we’re trying to do something about the problems we’ve got.”
Beyond the gates of Corpus Christi, the Catholic landscape is also surprising. Anecdotally, some parishes are even reporting bigger attendances. Something unexpected is going on.
My starting point was to discover what it was like to be a Catholic in Australia today. I wondered how much the abuse scandals had shaken the faith of everyday Catholics. So I searched out everyday Catholics, archbishops, priests and young men such as those at Corpus Christi.
For a secular journalist, the answers are sometimes challenging because, more often than not, the explanations provided relate to faith.
THE seminary is full," began the article in the April newsletter of Corpus Christi College. “How can this be?”
The question was posed by third year seminarian Nathan Rawlins, who went on to note that we live in one of the world’s most secularised societies, where to say one is a Catholic and attends mass is considered unusual.
“I am one of the generation that has grown up with the dark cloud of the sexual abuse crisis dragged through the media and stain the image of the priesthood in the eyes of the faithful and wider society for what seems my entire life.”
So why indeed is the seminary full? Rawlins offers a simple answer that is hard to appreciate from the secular viewpoint, but blindingly simple for those who have embraced the faith: “Now people are realising how great a gift it is to be a Catholic.”
The seminarians also reflect the ethnic mix of Australia today, and by extension, the Catholic congregations. They are drawn from 11 countries of origin.
What of the Francis Effect? The seminarians now in training would have been influenced by John Paul II and Benedict. As Daryl Montecillo, who will be ordained this year, puts it: “We trust in God regardless of whoever God gives us as pope. But we thank God for Pope Francis, that’s for sure.”
Father Brendan Lane believes the tide has turned, and ponders why. “I see them for the future, these fellas. Why are these guys coming in now? I think people are going to need hope.”"**
smh.com.au/national/revitalised-catholic-church-attracting-more-trainee-priests-20150502-1mw16v.html
Thanks also to all of you who pray for more Priests. Please keep praying with me for more, our parish priest has a huge area to cover and he needs help.Quite a long article. Very interesting read. I cherry picked what I found interesting particularly wrt to attendance at Mass and participation by laypeople. The noticeable increase is happening in neighbouring dioceses and our diocese.
**"Father Brendan Lane didn’t see this coming. Twenty years ago, the number of young men training to be Catholic priests in the seminary had dwindled to about 20. Lane, the silver-haired priest who heads the Corpus Christi College, saw an institution in decline.
“I thought with attitudes as they were, we’re finished,” says Lane, then a parish priest. Two decades on, and the priest of 41 years has witnessed a transformation, a revival in interest in the priesthood that means he doesn’t have enough rooms at the seminary, and an appeal to fund an extension will be launched.
At last count, this year will see close to 60 men in training to be priests in Melbourne alone – the highest number since the early 1970s. Across Australia, the number is more than 150.
This is striking, counter-intuitive news. For the past decade, the Catholic Church has been shaken by revelations of the sexual abuse of children by clergy, and worse, the covering-up of the crimes and the protection of the offenders. To be a Catholic – let alone a priest – meant dealing collectively with this stain, this shame.
The logical conclusion would be a priesthood and church in decline. Yet a different and surprising picture is emerging, partly demonstrated each morning at 6.45am in a pocket of Carlton, where in the bluestone chapel at Corpus Christi, every pew is filled by men called to the priesthood.
“This turnaround has been a real surprise I think to us, especially with the bad publicity,” says Lane.
“I think it probably works in a reverse way. It says that we’re trying to do something about the problems we’ve got.”
Beyond the gates of Corpus Christi, the Catholic landscape is also surprising. Anecdotally, some parishes are even reporting bigger attendances. Something unexpected is going on.
My starting point was to discover what it was like to be a Catholic in Australia today. I wondered how much the abuse scandals had shaken the faith of everyday Catholics. So I searched out everyday Catholics, archbishops, priests and young men such as those at Corpus Christi.
For a secular journalist, the answers are sometimes challenging because, more often than not, the explanations provided relate to faith.
THE seminary is full," began the article in the April newsletter of Corpus Christi College. “How can this be?”
The question was posed by third year seminarian Nathan Rawlins, who went on to note that we live in one of the world’s most secularised societies, where to say one is a Catholic and attends mass is considered unusual.
“I am one of the generation that has grown up with the dark cloud of the sexual abuse crisis dragged through the media and stain the image of the priesthood in the eyes of the faithful and wider society for what seems my entire life.”
So why indeed is the seminary full? Rawlins offers a simple answer that is hard to appreciate from the secular viewpoint, but blindingly simple for those who have embraced the faith: “Now people are realising how great a gift it is to be a Catholic.”
The seminarians also reflect the ethnic mix of Australia today, and by extension, the Catholic congregations. They are drawn from 11 countries of origin.
What of the Francis Effect? The seminarians now in training would have been influenced by John Paul II and Benedict. As Daryl Montecillo, who will be ordained this year, puts it: “We trust in God regardless of whoever God gives us as pope. But we thank God for Pope Francis, that’s for sure.”
Father Brendan Lane believes the tide has turned, and ponders why. “I see them for the future, these fellas. Why are these guys coming in now? I think people are going to need hope.”"**
smh.com.au/national/revitalised-catholic-church-attracting-more-trainee-priests-20150502-1mw16v.html