Article: Sad Decline in Priestly Vocations

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Yes, that’s my theory. If there are 1/4 as many young men at mass receiving the sacraments in 2018 compared with, say, 1950 and before (total guess, I don’t know the actual numbers) then it wouldn’t be a surprise that priestly vocations have declined as well. Smaller pool of potential candidates.

At my church, which is not a small church, there are literally no teenage boys who attend mass on a weekly basis (I go to the most best attended mass on Sunday morning). And there are only a scattering of 20-30 year old men.
 
Ummm… you could just go to college seminary. Or a Catholic college.
 
Given the drop in birth rates and family size after the introduction of the Pill, I suspect not. A mother with 6 children will not freak out the way a mother with 2 would if one or two children consider following a religious vocation.
 
In my diocese, it is not uncommon for men over 40 to be ordained. I don’t know of any resistance towards widowers. I suspect those who may be thinking about ordination might also have thought about the diaconate, where lots of older men have been ordained. Our diaconate candidates are trained right at the seminary. I don’t see the likelihood for many additional priest candidates, awaiting an invite from their pastor, when there are married and widowed deacons in town, who are a lot like them, they could talk to.

The vocations numbers are scary. Where I live the numbers of baptisms, confirmations, and Church weddings are way down, as well. I blame the decline in religious education starting in the late 1960s. Huge numbers of Catholics graduated from parochial schools and CCD programs with far less doctrinal knowlege than their parents had. The diocesan newspaper essentially fixated on whatever issues were in the secular media.

The few vocations we do have are coming from home schoolers, or from families who directly taught the religious curriculum at least to their children. There are independent doctrinal based Catholic schools in many cities, which have produced far more than their share of vocations. In Lincoln, of course, the diocese itself emphasizes doctrine, so we see their results.
 
I reckon that’s the case to be honest. Fewer Catholic men will obviously mean fewer potential candidates.
 
Satanists? Many of these would be your future parishioners. What a really Christian attitude to have toward the people of God…I seriously think you need to reconsider what you suspect might be your vocation.
 
I don’t think that’s the way we want to go if you think about it … Most Widowers are going to be in their upper 60’s and into 70’s Sure you’ll have a few generally speaking but I don’t think over all the numbers would support this idea … Plus of course not all would been keen on starting a new job at this point in their life
 
I think we also need to be honest about a few things. There are churches in places that no longer have attendances to support their costs, they need to close. My spouse is a Lutheran Pastor and we have many others that are friends. Being the leader of a church is exhausting and the burn out rate is fairly high. Imagine your job being to impartially lead and to providing loving support (even to those you really can’t stand) to a dysfunctional family. The depths of priest abuse scandals has taken much of the luster of the priesthood. Those are some of the realities that are generally not spoken of.

As they have few ways out, Seminarians need to fully understand the stress of working with a dysfunctional parish. My spouse gained about 20 lbs from the stress of the last church. It was controlled by a few bullies who were great at maintaining control through creating angst in the other church members. Some of the younger people brought my spouse in with the hope of reforming it. Instead these older bullies managed to maintain control and not renew the call of my spouse. However these bullies lose in the long run as 2/3 of the members have left taking all the kids along with them.

We pine for the days when we could be ministered to by many priests, but we aren’t preparing them for the realities of going at alone. Priests are also expected to do more in the running of the Parish, things have changed. Instead of counting the number of men you are willing to jump into the deep end of this vocation, we need to concentrate on the fitness for service of those Priests that are coming out of Seminary. Many of them are wide eyed optimistic about how they are going to change the world only to be blind sided by some of the things I have mentioned above.
 
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The “young men attending mass”-are they parishioners or priests?
 
Parishioners. To be fair, the situation in my Diocese obviously does not reflect the situation across all Dioceses, but I suspect that across the board there’s been a huge drop off in the 18-30 male demographic group attending mass on a regular basis.
 
KJW5551 said:
but I suspect that across the board there’s been a huge drop off in the 18-30 male demographic group attending mass on a regular basis.
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This is nothing particularly new. The 2002 ABC News poll shows Catholic mass attendance is pretty weak with men, particularly young men.

That was a long time ago.

I’m not sure if the sectarian differences remain. According to this poll, 49 percent of Catholic women attend but only 26% of Catholic men. Among Protestants, the numbers were 50% for women and 42% for men.

 
KJW5551 said:
I agree with this article though: whatever the Diocese of Lincoln (and select others) is doing should be studied and copied.
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I was a practicing Catholic in Lincoln for many years. I always found it interesting that our numbers were so much higher than other places.
 
The traditional movement has no priest shortage. The wider Church should take note and make reverent liturgy and orthodoxy a prime objective. I also believe that Catholics should be educated about the role of the priest. Fulton Sheen spent his latter years trying to teach people about the nature of the priesthood because he was shocked that many seminarians had no clear knowledge of the priestly role. He gave many retreats (which are available for download on Audible) in which he explained that the priest was another Christ - a sacrificial victim.
 
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ChunkMonk said:
Why do I have to spend 4 years paying Satanists for the privilege of “teaching” me about their disgusting morals just so that I can become a priest? Very silly.
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Nice attitude. Very Christian of you.
 
ChunkMonk said:
Why do I have to spend 4 years paying Satanists for the privilege of “teaching” me about their disgusting morals just so that I can become a priest? Very silly.
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Ha, well don’t forget about all of the tax benefits churches receive as well.
 
There seem to be a lot of vocations in developing nations as well (India, Nigeria, Philippines, etc). Funny how thst works. 😉
 
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Great reason to support Catholic Book Fairs at the schools…there are a selection of books related to supporting vocational awareness in children and other books about Saints is also a great way to inspire vocations. By God’s Grace, we do our best to remember to pray for vocations everyday!

Catholicbookfairs.org
 
Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers has a book specific for Catholic men “Behold the Man: Spirituality for Men”
 
Augustinian said:
I’m not sure if the sectarian differences remain. According to this poll, 49 percent of Catholic women attend but only 26% of Catholic men. Among Protestants, the numbers were 50% for women and 42% for men.
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Interesting and unexpected. I’ve even heard…I thought they were joking…Catholic woman say it is difficult to find Catholic men who would hang out with them socially. These are attractive, educated, pleasant young woman too. I sorta wonder what I’m missing here.
 
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In my dioceses, I’m seeing the Bishop bringing in seminarians from South and Central America, who end up being ordained and working here.

It’s not a bed of roses for sure and the cultural differences they have are an issue.

However, I give them credit as they not only learn theology and Church doctrine, but also learn to speak, read and write in English.

Jim
 
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