Let's be real about the shortage of priests

[Dhc8_Type]

It takes discipline. My dad has gotten the call on vacations or at hockey tournaments, middle of the night saying can you come to the hospital so and so has had a massive stroke or we got the diagnosis…he is the pastor at rural small city church and the country church 8 miles away. He has a vicar (our pastors in training) but he never missed a game and has always been there for his parish. My grandpas were the same way. Moms dad was even the volunteer fire chief. Dads dad doubled as the Americans legion chaplain the guys always figured who better.

 

[commenter]

Gorgias:

What’s happened is that people, having been poorly catechized in what we really believe, have accepted what others say we believe… and as a result, have simply chosen to walk away.

So, our solution is… ???

Careful with this. I, and numerous friends, were properly catechised in expensive k-12 parochial schools. We were raised in devout families by loving parents who wanted nothing less than to raise us to adulthood to be strong Catholics. We all have a full understanding of the Catholic Church. Most of us are no longer Catholic because we simply don’t believe in the religion. Your problem isn’t as simple as I hear a lot of Catholics trying to make it. “Not understanding” the religion is not the problem in many cases.

You are right, we should not stereotype people, and assume if they don’t accept (all) the Catholic Faith, “You obviously did not get the right formation”. Maybe they did. But they had other sermons too.

Individuals are different, with many unique life experiences in addition to home and school. But it is also true that in the West, since around 1960, there has been a heavy concentration of power in the media, and the media has become far more secular. Specifically, anti-Catholicism has become the only officially tolerated, even encouraged prejudice.

Even if a boy gets solid Catholic education and formation, he will get far more “religious” formation through the media, directly and through peers.
Usually this not so explicit, but rather implied. You seldom see editorials or TV shows that try to prove why abortion should be legal. Rather, the secular humanist position is taken for granted. This implicit evangelism is much harder to resist, than for instance, some writer who tries to make a logical argument for Secular Humanism. The secularists are usually avoid “logic” altogether.

Thus, the priest shortage. Thus, the shortage of solid marriages. Secularists used to argue “I believe in Reason, not Faith”. Today the Catholic Church has to defend not only Faith, but also Reason.

 

[Olderme]

Give Jesus what you have with expectant faith . Wine, fish ,bread sinners into Saints
He can do .We must be failing to ask

 

[guanophore]

Something needs to change otherwise in twenty years we’re all going to be driving an hour to the cathedral of the diocese where the two priests in the diocese say Mass. Grim but when you look at the loss in 30 years and the average age of priests you see this is actually real.

I think the change has already happened, and we are on the mend, but we are still paying the price for abysmal catechesis in the 70’s and 80’s. When there is orthodox teaching and faith formation, there will be sufficient priests to meet all the need. When there is poor catechesis, Catholics will be pulled out of the Church by Protestants.

 

[Gorgias]

Careful with this. I, and numerous friends, were properly catechised in expensive k-12 parochial schools.

… We all have a full understanding of the Catholic Church. Most of us are no longer Catholic because we simply don’t believe in the religion.

This could lead to an interesting conversation! What, then, led you and your friends to disbelief?

Your problem isn’t as simple as I hear a lot of Catholics trying to make it. “Not understanding” the religion is not the problem in many cases.

This is true. I remain to be convinced, though, that it’s a true and full understanding of what the Church really teaches, although I’m open to listen and stand corrected!

However, let me phrase it this way: although there are many reasons for the decline in active participation in the Church, incomplete and/or inaccurate catechesis is by far the most pervasive and representative reason for this downturn. (IMHO, of course. )

 

[commenter]

although there are many reasons for the decline in active participation in the Church, incomplete and/or inaccurate catechesis is by far the most pervasive and representative reason for this downturn. (IMHO, of course. )

I would argue that this is 50% of the reason. The other is the extremely powerful secular media culture of the West. I have relatives who graduated from schools that were, at the time, orthodox, prior to about 1965. They then soaked up the secularism of the secular media. If I talk to them, they constantly evaluate Catholicism in terms of CNN’s world view.

Vocations today tend to come from home schoolers, or similar families that very carefully select from the newer orthodox Catholic schools. But those same families have discontinued the daily newspaper, and do not encourage kids to watch the TV news, limit TV entertainment. (When I was in Catholic school, reading the daily paper and watching TV news was extremely encouraged by parents and school). Well meaning parents and teachers continued to trust the secular news media long after it turned toxic.

Where I live, the liberal Catholic schools often have the daily anti-Catholic newspaper delivered right to the classroom. eek!

 

[edtaylor51]

When I was in high school and college, I never even considered the priesthood. Now if priests could get married, I would have at least considered it.

 

[edtaylor51]

What’s an anti-catholic paper? Do you just mean the local non-catholic (or secular,non religious) paper? Or is it specifically anti catholic?

 

[Gorgias]

When I was in high school and college, I never even considered the priesthood. Now if priests could get married, I would have at least considered it.

When I was in high school and college, I never even considered marriage. Now if married men could still get another wife, I would have at least considered it.

 

[edtaylor51]

When I was in high school and college, I never even considered marriage. Now if married men could still get another wife, I would have at least considered it.

Woah. That escalated quickly.

 

[Trilor]

There are seminaries open to late vocations. in the USA there is Holy Apostles in Connecticut and I think one other in the Northeast States. Also in Rome there is The Beda Institute, which is across the street from St Paul’s Outside the Walls

 

[commenter]

What’s an anti-catholic paper? Do you just mean the local non-catholic (or secular,non religious) paper? Or is it specifically anti catholic?

Our daily newspaper was founded in the 1800s by a local Protestant family. For generations it adhered to a moderate conservative, moderate Protestant, moderate Republican view. It was compatible with Catholicism however, and supported the basic principles of the Natural Law.

It was bought out by a wealthy national corporation, and now has no competition. It never refers to secular humanism, nor does it look directly at that POV; but it looks at everything else from that POV. The great majority of articles make no mention of the Catholic Church. But when they look at any kind of moral issue, they invariably disagree with the Catholic Church.

 

[commenter]

I think opening the priesthood to married men would result in very few additional vocations - probably mostly deacons who are at least 50 years old, not many others.

The Church has a marriage crisis (along with the whole society). Not only is the divorce rate extremely high, even late in life, but married men are dealing with problems with their own teenagers and young adult children far more than their parents’ generation did. Sometimes the problems they have now were not foreseeable a decade ago, when that seminary idea might have popped up in their mind.

 

[Spyridon]

Loosening the Roman Rite restriction on married clergy would be a huge step in the right direction.

And I’m familiar with all the arguments against it (which usually boil down to money) and have tried them and found them wanting.

Start ordaining married men to the Priesthood - we could start with a pilot program, taking a couple hundred married permanent Deacons in the US who would want to become Priests and ordain them to begin the process.

 

[BlackFriar]

Perhaps the approach is a little myopic.
How can we know where to go in 2018 if we don’t know where we have come from?

Nor do short term “set piece” chess moves work when the board has previously been ravaged and we are still reeling. It would be no more than re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Pope Francis is likely right, we are in an army field hospital situation - triage is perhaps the order of the day rather than set piece strategies.

 

[Wretched_1]

Nope, that is not all you posted. How do you try to get away with such falsehoods when the evidence is only a few threads up as plain as day in black and white…

Now this needs a little more unpacking than perhaps you’ve done here.
Imagine what state the Church would be in had VII not happened…

Do you really believe the situation would have been any better?
I don’t. It would likely have been many times worse because in fact, like stuck tectonic plates, a huge dissonance and pressure had built up that needed to be released.

Church structures and thinking was so unreal and at odds with the changing world that it took huge discipline in laity and clergy to keep the two continental shelfs artificially linked.
It was an impossible task.
It is a wonder that more men and women did not leave the priesthood and religious life. At that time the lifestyle and thinking was olde worlde and hopelessly inadequate for facing the new theological and secular challenges. They were hopelessly trained and prepared for apostolic life and the medieval community life was not adequately nourishing. Their own teachers largely taught them past solutions that no longer worked in a less authoritarian,post WWII world. The authoritarian and impersonal way with set piece apostolates that they were expected to live would cause mental breakdowns in most persons.
VII likely should have happened a generation or two earlier.

You seem to harken back to a day where the Church had for some time stopped reading the signs of the times. Had smaller changes been instituted much earlier we may just as likely not seen the huge earthquakes that happened post VII.

I get it you will disagree, your comments above indicate the olde ways suit your personality and temperament. Unfortunately most people no longer share that temperament so things have to change.

The Church is still finding its feet in 1st world countries. There is no priest shortage in 3rd world countries where the olde worlde ways still have a grip due to poverty. I do not know the answer, in 1st world countries, we are still rebounding from the too late changes and a new formula hasn’t been found yet. We will, it will just take time.

This rest of your post shows what you seem to think is the dependence of Christ’s Church on the whims of man. Like Tinker bell Holy Mother Church will just disappear if it fails to remain “relevant” and as Jas pointed out not to the youth, because the youth see the shallowness of the culture/devil and all his pomps, but relevant to hippy codger degenerates. It seems like you have truly lost the supernatural faith, (which you maybe miscategorized as medieval superstition)? That’s just sad.

 

[BlackFriar]

Gorgias:

What’s happened is that people, having been poorly catechized in what we really believe, have accepted what others say we believe… and as a result, have simply chosen to walk away.

So, our solution is… ???

Careful with this. I, and numerous friends, were properly catechised in expensive k-12 parochial schools. We were raised in devout families by loving parents who wanted nothing less than to raise us to adulthood to be strong Catholics. We all have a full understanding of the Catholic Church. Most of us are no longer Catholic because we simply don’t believe in the religion. Your problem isn’t as simple as I hear a lot of Catholics trying to make it. “Not understanding” the religion is not the problem in many cases.

QG this is interesting. What issues did you see your friends deserting for?
How is it you still seem to be hanging on?

My own sister left at 19 in the 1960s after studying Japanese at University. She got involved with a Buddhist group and has been ever since. She felt Catholics were too gungho and crusading in their belief - while Buddhists were the very opposite - contemplative and compassionate and still intelligent. and personal and common-man “bloom where you are planted” rather than impersonal, big picture political activists. She quoted Genesis about how God apparently gave Man the right to dominate (ie pillage if necessary) society, nature and kill animals. She was part hippy but still had a point. We are in Australasia not USA.

 

[BlackFriar]

You are right, we should not stereotype people, and assume if they don’t accept (all) the Catholic Faith, “You obviously did not get the right formation”. Maybe they did. But they had other sermons too.

Or maybe the Church got the human aspects of its teaching somehow wrong and didn’t listen enough to the new generation of laity who tried to say it wasn’t working and unconsciously voted with its feet. Its also typical of a commune to makes pariahs of those who cannot take it, are not nourished and leave.

Most people have never noticed the following comment by JPII in Vertias Splendor where he tries to define the malaise of his time and redirect the Church:

"While recognizing the possible limitations of the human arguments employed by the Magisterium, moral theologians are called to develop a deeper understanding of the reasons underlying its teachings …"

Today the Catholic Church has to defend not only Faith, but also Reason.

This is likely true - and surely we must admit the Church, being human, has, and sometimes still does continues to stray from the path of reason herself and is not always aware of values that secular society is now more sensitive to than the Church herself is. eg abuse of power, unreasonable secrecy, ineffective management of sexual abuse, and less than compassionate provision for priest children to name a few.

 

[BlackFriar]

This rest of your post shows what you seem to think is the dependence of Christ’s Church on the whims of man. Like Tinker bell Holy Mother Church will just disappear if it fails to remain “relevant” and as Jas pointed out not to the youth, because the youth see the shallowness of the culture/devil and all his pomps, but relevant to hippy codger degenerates. It seems like you have truly lost the supernatural faith, (which you maybe miscategorized as medieval superstition)? That’s just sad.

Well you don’t seem to need me to reply if you can second guess and speak for me so eloquently!
I leave you to your concentrated shadow-boxing. God bless.

 

[Gorgias]

Woah. That escalated quickly.

LOL!

Just pointing out the logical error in the assertion…