Vocations Surge

  • Thread starter Thread starter Maranatha
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

Maranatha

Guest
Vocations Surge

The Priest Shortage Isn’t Over, But Seminaries Are Filling Up

It’s vocations awareness week — but most Catholics aren’t aware of which dioceses are having successes with vocations.

The list might surprise you.

Dioceses such as Boston, Chicago, Newark, Philadelphia and St. Paul/Minneapolis continue to have the largest ordination classes, in part because of their larger Catholic populations. When the number of seminarians is compared with the total number of Catholics in the diocese, however, a very different list emerges — one that shows that the largest number of priests per capita are coming from the Midwest and the southern United States

ncregister.com/site/article/1733/
 
rlg94086 said:
Now this is a surge we can all support! 🙂
Click to expand...
Absolutely!

There are two items in the article that I think are important.
  1. Most vocations start from a personal invitation from the local parish priest. Pray for our priests and their vocation efforts.
  2. The number of seminarians is not declining after the recent scandals. I think the Church is coming out of the scandals more pure and stronger. We should thank the media coverage.
 
I just got through reading The Rule of Benedict. The author, a liberal Catholic says for all John Paul the Great did, the Church continued to decline under him. And Benedict XVI is not the author’s favorite Pope to say the least!

Now, I wonder how he’d explain this – a latent effect of the “failed” John Paul II, or a result of Benedict XVI’s leadership?😉
 
Maranatha said:
Absolutely!

There are two items in the article that I think are important.
  1. Most vocations start from a personal invitation from the local parish priest. Pray for our priests and their vocation efforts.
  2. The number of seminarians is not declining after the recent scandals. I think the Church is coming out of the scandals more pure and stronger. We should thank the media coverage.
Click to expand...
Our priest is an excellent example of this. We have six alter boys at every Mass - some of them are teenagers. He is having meetings this week with men and women interested in vocations.

I think his age (35) also helps for young men to relate to the idea of becoming a priest. I’m not bemoaning older priests, just stating a reality. I think we will see a few seminarians out of our relatively small parish.

He is also very “orthodox” in his approach, which has helped increase the numbers in our parish and activities. The Church is nearly full on Sunday night, when families gather to pray a decade of the rosary (sometimes in Latin) before splitting up to our respective formation groups - pre-school through adult.

This IMO is how you get vocations!
 
Also, I think statistically you’ll find significant surges in those areas where there is great attention paid to the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
 
kparlet said:
Also, I think statistically you’ll find significant surges in those areas where there is great attention paid to the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Click to expand...
I think you’ll find it in the areas which hold to and follow the teachings of the Church. I had the pleasant experience of being approched by kids who want to be altar servers (I became an altar boy because my mother gave me the choice – be an altar boy or join the Glee Club!)

I find kids take comfort in being told about right and wrong without waffling over “well, some people think this and some think that.”
 
kparlet said:
Also, I think statistically you’ll find significant surges in those areas where there is great attention paid to the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
Click to expand...
👍 I agree.

We also started Perpetual Adoration in September. I’ve found more places for adoration in WA and OR than in the Bay Area (CA).
 
The issue for me is not how many seminarians a given diocese or religious order has, it is how many ordinations it has.

Some places seem to accept almost anyone knowing that many will wash out in the process of the seminary education and not make it to ordination.
 
ByzCath said:
The issue for me is not how many seminarians a given diocese or religious order has, it is how many ordinations it has.

Some places seem to accept almost anyone knowing that many will wash out in the process of the seminary education and not make it to ordination.
Click to expand...
In the Diocese of Little Rock we have a poster showing all our seminarians and the expected year of ordination. Pretty hard to wash out when the eyes of the diocese are on you.
 
vern_humphrey said:
In the Diocese of Little Rock we have a poster showing all our seminarians and the expected year of ordination. Pretty hard to wash out when the eyes of the diocese are on you.
Click to expand...
I’d disagree with that. We have a similar poster in Chicago. Yet quite a few won’t make it through. There lots of guys on there, yet how many people even know one of them? It’s nice advertizing, but in many cases little more than wall hanging, as it’s basically impersonal.
 
chicago said:
I’d disagree with that. We have a similar poster in Chicago. Yet quite a few won’t make it through. There lots of guys on there, yet how many people even know one of them? It’s nice advertizing, but in many cases little more than wall hanging, as it’s basically impersonal.
Click to expand...
It works well for us - of course we support our seminarians. More involvement by the diocese laity might help – invite them to attend your church now and then, have a fishfry or whatever.
 
chicago said:
I’d disagree with that. We have a similar poster in Chicago. Yet quite a few won’t make it through. There lots of guys on there, yet how many people even know one of them? It’s nice advertizing, but in many cases little more than wall hanging, as it’s basically impersonal.
Click to expand...
Of course some seminarians do not ‘make it through’. It’s not an assault course. They may discover the priesthood is not their vocation. The job of vocations staff is to limit those numbers.

Well, probably a lot of people in their own parish know them, but why would other people know them? I hope these seminarians would come and give the occasional talk, but if they do not, there’s no reason anyone will know them. That isn’t terribly important anyway. Vocations posters are good tools and people don’t need to know the men personally to see their example.
 
One of my earlier memories is going with my mother and grandmother to a sewing party. The lady of the house where we went had son about to be ordained. All the ladies of the parish met to sew and embrodier his vestments.

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen something like that.

Why won’t our bishops lead us? Why don’t they call on us for greater participation? We could have a parish “adopt” each seminarian. Let him come to the parish and meet the people. Let us send him things – small things, like an occasional box of cookies or something like that – as if he were our own son away at college.
 
vern_humphrey said:
We could have a parish “adopt” each seminarian.
Click to expand...
Its an interesting idea. I think it would make the seminarians feel the warmth and support of the community. But Titus’ comment makes me wonder if it would put too much pressure on them by making them feel like failures if they decide that they do not truly have a vocation while in seminary.

Still, its an interesting idea. Have you proposed it to anyone in the diocese?
 
Dale_M said:
Its an interesting idea. I think it would make the seminarians feel the warmth and support of the community. But Titus’ comment makes me wonder if it would put too much pressure on them by making them feel like failures if they decide that they do not truly have a vocation while in seminary.

Still, its an interesting idea. Have you proposed it to anyone in the diocese?
Click to expand...
Right now we have no bishop, ours having been transferred to another diocese. When we finally have one, I’ll broach the subject.
 
vern_humphrey said:
It works well for us - of course we support our seminarians. More involvement by the diocese laity might help – invite them to attend your church now and then, have a fishfry or whatever.
Click to expand...
In a large Archiodcese like ours (with a fully comprehensive - at least at the moment seminary system), it is all too easy to get lost in the flow. The overall “pressure” might not be what it is when “everyone knows who you are”, therefore.
 
rlg94086 said:
Our priest is an excellent example of this. We have six alter boys at every Mass - some of them are teenagers. He is having meetings this week with men and women interested in vocations.
Click to expand...
At our parish, just about every boy from 5 years old to their early 20’s in an altar boys.

At a typical Sunday Mass, we have 30+ boys serving (most carry swing torches in procession).

We also have 6 men in the Seminary right now from our parish . 3 men in various stages towards the ‘permanent Diaconate’ and 3 women in Postulant\Novice programs towards religious life.

this is out of about 800 families.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top