C
Caveman
Guest
The Raleigh News & Observer ran a front-page article entitled As church grows, priest ranks shrink. Yeah, it sounds like a grim story, but it isn’t. It’s actually pretty uplifting.
Of course, there’s the requisite nay-sayer from Catholic University of America who can’t seem to say anything positive about H.E. Bishop Burbidge, even though in the one year and handful of months that Bishop Burbidge has been here, the Diocese of Raleigh has gone from 1 or 2 men entering the seminary a year (sometimes a whopping zero)… to 21 this year alone. That didn’t happen by accident.
Anyhow, I’m not going to post much from the article, except these two rather short paragraphs. They sum it all up;
But there is a curious thing about the new crop of Catholic priests. Many of them, such as Burbeck, who is 23, have a passionate commitment to the Catholic Church. At a time when many Catholics blame their priests for the horrific cases of sexual abuse of children, Burbeck said that in embracing the church, he felt not qualms but clarity.
“That’s the reason I was created,” Burbeck said referring to his desire to become a priest. “That’s the meaning of my life.”
Of course, there’s the requisite nay-sayer from Catholic University of America who can’t seem to say anything positive about H.E. Bishop Burbidge, even though in the one year and handful of months that Bishop Burbidge has been here, the Diocese of Raleigh has gone from 1 or 2 men entering the seminary a year (sometimes a whopping zero)… to 21 this year alone. That didn’t happen by accident.
Anyhow, I’m not going to post much from the article, except these two rather short paragraphs. They sum it all up;
But there is a curious thing about the new crop of Catholic priests. Many of them, such as Burbeck, who is 23, have a passionate commitment to the Catholic Church. At a time when many Catholics blame their priests for the horrific cases of sexual abuse of children, Burbeck said that in embracing the church, he felt not qualms but clarity.
“That’s the reason I was created,” Burbeck said referring to his desire to become a priest. “That’s the meaning of my life.”