**If you introduce loads of populist elements at once into a rite you can’t be surprised at a lack of vocations to say it and a fall in attendance at it. It just isn’t, by definition, as serious a business as before. **
It’s a celebration, everythings OK, Mrs. Goodlady is in the sanctuary, have a lie in.
I disagree with your assessment. I visit many parishes, about 121 a year in our diocese. None of them has a shortage of priests. They all have very good liturgies, with both male and female altar servers.
My own community does not have a shortage of vocation. We have undergone a shift, but I believe that was more of our own choosing. We used to get many men who wanted to be priests, but we began to refer them to the diocesan seminary, because most of them did not understand the difference between religious life and Holy Orders. They came to us wanting to be priests, but not necessarily wanting to be brothers. St. Francis did not found an order of priests, He founded a brotherhood in which priest were allowed to join, but the reason for thier joining was that they wanted to follow Francis’ path in following the Gospel. So we have three non-clerical friars to every one ordained friar. But those who are ordained very much want to be brothers. They want to walk in the footsteps of St. Francis, that’s why they join us.
In the diocese where I work we have also had a shift in vocations. There was a time when the ratio of priests to religious brothers weas 4:1 and now it’s 2:1. The number of priests has not dropped. The number of religious brothers has increased, because the diocesan vocation director is pointing more men to the religious life for the same reason that we point men to the diocesan seminary. Many men who walk into his office say that they want to be priests, but when you interview them, they really want relgious life, not Holy Orders. It’s just that many people did not know the difference between the two calls.
We also have a congregation of sisters founded in the diocese and it’s very large and growing. They started with four about 10 years ago and they have over 150 today. Some of the sisters are now being sent to other dioceses to start new foundations.
The parish where I teach religious education has five priests, four deacons, and six brothers. They have seven masses every weekend and all are full. The church seats about 800. They have two priests hearing confessions on Saturdays.
Our brothers run a parish no too far from where I’m stationed. We have seven brothers at that house. One of the ordained brothers serves as the parish administrator. The only reason that he can’t be the pastor is because the superior of the house is not a priest. You can’t have to bosses of equal rank in one house.
What I’m trying to say is that there is a vocation shift in many places and many orders. For example our Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, which almost everyone knows because Fr. Benedict G is so famous, they have over 100 friars in a very short time. You won’t see them at a parish, because it’s forbidden by the constitutions. Unless you live in the worse part of town, you won’t run into them either, because they are not allowed to serve the middle and upper classes. But you will see them on the streets of New York, London, Lima, and Managua, sitting with the homeless, the alchoholics, the drug addicts, those who have jsut gotten out of prison and the down-trodden.
We have just welcomed into the USA the Missionaries of the Poor. They are sending brothers all over the world. They started as a very smalll congregation in Jamaica. Again, you will not see them in parishes. Unless you live in a slum, are homeless, sick, poor, abandoned, you may never run into them. They work in the poorest parishes. They have over 200 brothers, some ordained. They too are a very young religious community.
The Franciscan Brothers of Peace in the MId-West are thriving. Again, you will not see them in parishes. It’s not allowed in the constitution. They may not ordain anyone either. The idea is to keep the Franciscan life in its purest state, that is the imitation of the life of St. Francis. But they are also growing by about 10 new brothers every years.
In fact, we’re now creating another branch of the Franciscan order, the Franciscan Brothers of Life. When I finish my tour as superior of this community, I’m supposed to move to direct the formation of that new branch of the order. The project began last March and there are already six postulants. These men will work in pro-life ministry full-time. Again, you may only see them in your parish when they go to train your priests on the Gospel of Life and to recruit lay volunteers to work in pregnancy centers.
to be continued
