Where are the American born priests?

[TheLittleLady]

For a high school senior to have signing day for lifetime vocations seems like a really bad idea

Did you see where I said “Discernment House”? The process of discernment takes years. Our Diocese offers a program where young men can enter during their university studies and do that discernment in community.

Minor Seminaries begin at an even younger age, boarding schools for students from age 12 through high school. This is part of our Catholic Tradition, and if you notice places like India (where minor seminaries are in place), vocations are booming.

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/more-than-1300-teens-studying-in-minor-seminaries-in-spain

Wiki has a list of Minor Seminaries Minor seminary - Wikipedia

 

[tafan2]

I think the idea of bringing back minor seminaries needs to be put on hold until we have an honest accounting and resolution of the problem of sexual abuse of seminarians. More and more it appears the problems of abuse of minors, in the USA at least, after 2002, simply moved up into the seminaries.

BTW, this is late, but I am very sorry for the loss of your husband. He is in my prayers.

 

[Divine3]

Where are the American Born Priests?
Coming back from vacation. I like when the missions come to the USA. When an American missionary goes to serve in a foreign country they usually suffer from learning a new language, and experiencing a new culture. And sometimes they hear that the people can’t understand his accent…so now we can be like a missionary and not always understand our foreign priest. Touche` I also am very grateful they come to us and open our eyes to what most of the world is living in …poverty and for Christians persecution.

 

[jack63]

I’m familiar with discernment houses. In one the places I went to school they were primarily for seniors in college or grad students. Somebody might quietly enter a discernment house as a final step before seminary or entering into an order. Most people who entered into these houses did end up in seminary or in an order.

As for minor seminaries, I thought this was a thing of the past. It may be Catholic tradition, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. I really don’t believe minor seminaries or any idea like that is something we should be looking towards to fix the vocation shortage in the US.

 

[tafan2]

As for minor seminaries, I thought this was a thing of the past. It may be Catholic tradition, but that doesn’t make it a good idea. I really don’t believe minor seminaries or any idea like that is something we should be looking towards to fix the vocation shortage in the US.

I am not for sure the minor seminaries even worked well in the past. At least not in the 20th century. I grew up in a small farming community. A friend of my father went to the seminary for high school in the late 50s, perhaps early 60s. When I was in college, but way before any of the sex abuse scandal broke out I remember him talking about it. He said that when he went he literally had no idea what homesexuality was. He learned quickly as the seminary was full of it.