Lack of Priests

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convertmjh

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I was sitting in morning mass and my priest was talking about the shortage of priests and how we need to encorage more young men to consider it as a career. I had no idea that it was a major concern until this morning. What are some of the steps the Catholic Church is doing to encorage more men for the priesthood?
 
God has never stopped calling young men to the priesthood; they haven’t responded “yes”. Part of the answer, I think, is the kind of world we live in ; sex is everywhere even in our television commercials, we are encouraged to think only of ourselves and how much money we can make in order to live an amoral lifestyle. Another part of the answer is the result of the collapse of authentic education in the Faith in the First World. Why would any young man want to be a priest when he knows nothing about the Mass or the truths of the Faith?

The bishops first of all, in my opinion, have to stop the rot in education. Fire those theologians in Universities who refuse to sign the mandatum and insist that teachers teach the authentic Faith not just some ersatz version which they think is ‘nice’.

Our shepherds have to stop looking the other way and DO what they are supposed to do ; look after the sheep.

How prophetic are these words from St Paul 2 Timothy 4: 3-4

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.” 😦
 
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convertmjh:
I was sitting in morning mass and my priest was talking about the shortage of priests and how we need to encorage more young men to consider it as a career. I had no idea that it was a major concern until this morning.

The shortage of priests has been a problem for some time now. Some churches share a priest. In some countries a priest may only get to a community once in 3 months. Lay leaders prepare the people for the Sacraments and they all wait for the priest’s next visit. Some have deacons. Our diocese has been very fortunate in having all our parishes covered. However, if a priest gets sick or wants a vacation, it is difficult at times to find a replacement. We have several retired priests that help, as well as priests from India that serve here as kind of a vacation for them.

Our answer is adoration before the Blessed Sacrament! Special prayers are offered for vocations.
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Until we start talking about religious life positively in the home you are never going to see an increase… I can’t remember the last time I heard a positive comment at a family get together… you use to revere a priest, nun or other religious person… now, it’s who wants to sacrifice their life… well, until we are ready to sacrifice our lives to and for Christ the future looks less than bright… the good news? “The Gates Of Hell Will Not Prevail”… 👍
 
Read the linked article by Archbishop Curtis. The “priest shortage” is a contrivance of the liberals in our midst.

Quote: “It seems to me that the vocation “crisis” is precipitated and continued by people who want to change the Church’s agenda, by people who do not support orthodox candidates loyal to the magisterial teaching of the Pope and bishops, and by people who actually discourage viable candidates from seeking priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines these ministries.”

ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/PRCURTIS.HTM
 
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convertmjh:
What are some of the steps the Catholic Church is doing to encorage more men for the priesthood?
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I think a better question is what are WE doing to engourage more men for the priesthood.
My oldest son is 12 yrs old and has been saying he wants to be a priest since he was about 5. At first we thought how cute next week he’ll want to be a fireman but he has never said he wants to do anything else. He still maintains he wants to be a priest but he has become shy about telling people because he has been teased at his Catholic School, even family say things like “oh just you wait till you start liking girls you’ll change your mind then”. While it may be true that he could change his mind as he enters into he teen years we should encourage it more in young men. I can understand this coming from non-Catholics but many Catholics don’t see this as a valuable carrer choice.
 
I would add just one thing, as one who is discerning a call to the priesthood.

The priesthood is not a career.
 
Most priests and bishops don’t encourage vocations to the priesthood, infact, many discourage it. Read “Good-bye Good Men”. Its true.
 
The late Bishop Untener of the Saginaw Diocese (Michigan) went for his first ad limina visit to the Holy Father and expressed a concern about the shortage of priests, seeking to get some encouragement. The Holy Father is reported to have told him, “shortage of priests? you should see what it is like in Poland!”
 
Deborah Norville, MSNBC last night did a hit piece on the Catholic church- knocking celibacy and blaming the practice on the recent sex scandal. She also had a debate with a soon to be ex-priest who was leaving the Joliet Diocese because he was not comfortable with a celibate lifestyle, a traditional nun, and Sr Christine Schenk CSJ, a heretic from the apostate Futurechurch.
http://www7.taosnet.com/cta-nm/newsletters/sr.chris.jpg

BTW Bishop Untener, along with Weakland, Bernardin & Lucker was one of the most heterodox bishops in the land- It would not surprise me that he actually suppressed vocations in order to further his agenda. As Michael Rose pointed out In Saginaw, Michigan, under the leadership of Bishop Kenneth Untener (another former seminary rector), parishes are commonly run by nuns and “lay pastors.” Untener was also well known for his support of New Ways Ministries, and his friendliness to Dignity. He also was the seminary administrator for St. Johns when they were showing porno flics to the seminarians before becoming Bishop.
 
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yinekka:
God has never stopped calling young men to the priesthood; they haven’t responded “yes”. Part of the answer, I think, is the kind of world we live in ; sex is everywhere even in our television commercials, we are encouraged to think only of ourselves and how much money we can make in order to live an amoral lifestyle. Another part of the answer is the result of the collapse of authentic education in the Faith in the First World. Why would any young man want to be a priest when he knows nothing about the Mass or the truths of the Faith?

The bishops first of all, in my opinion, have to stop the rot in education. Fire those theologians in Universities who refuse to sign the mandatum and insist that teachers teach the authentic Faith not just some ersatz version which they think is ‘nice’.

Our shepherds have to stop looking the other way and DO what they are supposed to do ; look after the sheep.

How prophetic are these words from St Paul 2 Timothy 4: 3-4

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.” 😦
Click to expand...
Well said! Until we teach the True Faith in our homes and in our schools, there won’t be much incentive for young men to consider the priesthood. Bishops must do a better job of teaching the Faith and of confronting our decadent culture. The American bishops recently had the collective opportunity to address the issue of pro-abortion, Catholic politicians receiving the Eucharist. The bishops set up a commission to study the problem and took a pass on issuing a final report until after the November elections. If our bishops don’t have the moral courage to address such a basic issue, what hope is there for attracting faithful men to the priesthood?
 
A lot of people suggest a change in the celibacy and marriage and other things, but these people have NO IDEA about what they are talking about.

America is in such a need for priests, that other countries are sending priests here. We are a missionary country! IT is really not surprising based on the drive for material things in this world. Most people’s hearts are still in Egypt (as my priest loves to say).

I do feel that there is a growing drive for the priesthood. Being in a large Catholic-population city, we are very fortunate to hear of many men going to the seminary.

What we can do as laypeople is pray for vocations and pray for our families. Encourage your children to keep a religous life an option. And most importantly PRAY FOR THEM!
 
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ByzCath:
I would add just one thing, as one who is discerning a call to the priesthood.

The priesthood is not a career.
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I was wondering if someone would bring that up. One of the problems with the priest shortage is just that - people thinking it is a career instead of a vocation.

Oh, and I’ll include your discerning (and possible vocation) in my prayers.

John
 
As all of you may have read before, our parish has a really good chance to close within the next year. Our priest (who takes care of 2 parishes) is going to retire, and there will be no one to take his place. They will either close us or our sister parish 7 miles away. If our sister parish is closed, we will be paired with a parish 10 miles away. Some body tell me, is it wrong to pray that our sister parish is closed instead of ours? I feel kind of guilty praying that our church stays open. Pray for vocations.
 
The priesthood and religious life crisis is very much alive in America, unfortunately. While Dallas seems to be doing OK with vocations, the outlying cities must share a priest, who travels from parish to parish on Sunday mornings. And our Catholic school has only one nun left, while many Catholic schools have none at all.

One wonderful young Carmelite priest told me that one portion of the problem is a lack of nuns in the schools, both teaching about vocations and praying for vocations. Our school has tackled this problem by having one grade level pray every single day for one month for an increase in religious vocations. 8th grade starts, in Aug and Sept, then 7th grade in Oct and so on, all the way down to the Kindergarteners.

In the classroom we have posted a large framed prayer for vocations, and we swap off a gorgeous paten and chalice, donated to us for this purpose by the KofC, and a rosary donated by a school family. Whenever an alum of the school takes religious vows, they recieve from us either the Rosary (nuns) or the Chalice and paten (priests). So far, one Rosary has been given. We are hoping for more, and we do have another young lady headed into a convent in Sept. for discernment time.

I also have the prayer for priests posted over my kitchen sink so I can say it every time I do the dishes. Which is really often, with five kiddos (six for now, we just got a new foster child!) 👍
 
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