Why do you think few men want to be priests?

[JReducation]

Possibilities to answer the OP:

Celibacy is not inviting

We live in a society where sex is overrated

Living an unmarried life with no children is not something many men want

Many men don’t want to be married and bound to chldren either. Look at the stats.

Less people are well-catechized than in the past, fewer learned men as candidates

True

Huge stigma attached to being a priest nowdays with gays and sex predators abounding

Abounding is an unfair term. I have been a religious for many years and have lived and worked with many priests. I have neve met one of these folks whom you describe. Let’s not overstate a problem. There is a problem, but it’s not abouding. Unfortunatey, it only takes one mess for it to turn into a smear campaign and Catholics should not help the campaign.

Vatican II watered down the Church and made it less dignified, full of majesty and the dignified days of the Tridentine Mass and old ways are gone

Vatican II did no such thing. Things like this happened after Vatican II, not because of Vatican II.

Let’s not forget the JP II generation of priests that has come up. These are a wonderful group of very holy and committed men. The generation of priests who have the greatest troubles was an earler generation. Those men who were born after 1980 and have entered the seminaries and religious ordes are very good men and doing great work. The problem is the difference in between the JP II generation and the generation that entered between 1950 and 1980. That’s the generation that had the problems.

There are less men entering today than there were in the 1950s and even early 1960s. We have to look at some real social changes that took place. There was horrible religious education. But there was also a smaller number to choose from, because families shrunk. Catholics began to have less children. In addition, the offerings of society became very attractive. Parents began to push their sons into high powered careers and the success oriented secular mentality infiltrated every sector of society.

We must also look at the picture in its historical context. The numbers of men who became priests between 1945 and 1965 was unprecedented. My guess is that two world wars has a way of turning people’s attention back to God. Today, when we look at dioceses and the number of men that they are ordaining, these numbers are not that different from the number of men that they were ordaining prior to WW I.

There seems to be a pattern. The number of men becoming priests and brothers seems to sore for certain periods and then it drops down for another hundred years or so, maybe more. We had not seen as many men entering since after the French Revolution. There was a surge in men entering diocesan seminaries, priestly congregations and congregations of religious brothers. Then it quieted down by 1825 until 1945.

If we look at the books kept by both dioceses and by religious orders, we can actually graph the phenomenon. The surges seem to coincide with such tragedies as great wars and other social political movements that seem to send everyone back to Church and prayer.

The numbers are back to normal and the quality of the men is excellent.

Another interesting thing that is happening is the surge right now seems to be in the developing nations and the Southern Hemisphere, excluding Australia. In my own community, we have many more men entering us in India, Asia, Africa, South America, the Caribbean, Central America, and the Middle East. We are now moving men from South America to the USA. Once upon a time we were sending men from Europe and the USA to South America. Our novitiates in Africa and the Pacific Islands are full. In the USA we have the same numbers that we had during the late 1800s.

What is also interesting to see is the emergence of new religious communities of men. They are all communities of non-clerical brothers with one ordained to every 10. The major superiors do not want to ordain more than 10% in order to preserve the purity of religious life. A community like the Missionaries of the Poor has hundreds of men in just a few short years. But they will not ordain more than 10%. Many of the Franciscan branches have gone back to refusing to ordain more than a hand-full to recover the Franciscan charism by avoiing clericalism. New Benedictine Foundations are coming up with the same formula: keep the number of priests low and preserve the charism of the religious life. Interestingly enoug, these communities are getting vocations.

Also, communities of priests, brothers or both, that work among the poor instead of parishes, seem to be on the rise. In the USA, most prishes are among the middle class. These parishes are not going to be served by many priests, since they do not have a vocation to serve the middle class.

This begs the question. What has the middle class done to shoot itself in the foot so that young men looking at the priesthood prefer to join communities such as the Franciscans of the Renewal, Missionaries of the Poor, Franciscans of the Immaculate, Benedictine monks, or missionary communities such as Fr. Corapi’s community, SOLTs?

We have to ask these questions and find the answers soon or we’re facing a future of middle class parishes without priests.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[CEM5]

EDIT: Thinking about it, perhaps I should’ve posted this in Vocations. Sorry, wasn’t thinking.

What are your thoughts? Why do you think there are so few Catholics (even devout Catholics) who are thinking about the priesthood?

---

I can tell you my reason—the celibacy rule. I’d love to be a priest if it weren’t for that. I feel the need for a woman, a companion who can help me in my faith and whom I can help in her faith. A woman who I can spend the rest of my life with, hold, have children with, etc. I feel this is necessary in my life, and it’s the only thing stopping me from being a priest.

Marriage is a sacrament as well, and it is not always an easy one either. In a sacramental marriage it is for life, and marriage takes alot of work - there are good times and there are bumpy times, but it is a total committment, and must be open to the gift of having children. That means no birth control, so unless a couple wants endless children they must abstain if they cannot support those children - be celibate. Depending on another person to help your faith grow is not feasible: it is love of God and that person’s sincere desire to have their faith grow that God’s Holy Spirit will respond to. I had a Priest once who told us that when he gave up all that this world offered (he too wanted to get married and have children and have the lucrative job and cars) he was more blessed in his Priesthood than he ever dreamed. We - the Parish - became his family and the Church provided him a place of residence, a vehicle and all the necessities of life.

Being a Priest is not for everyone and those who respond and say “yes” to God will be truly blessed.

In the Western world where the material lures abound, fewer men want to become Priests, however, in the non-Western world, there is no lack of men wanting to become Priests. We cannot serve two masters for where the heart lays, so too does our desire.

Notwithstanding, as I said earlier, marriage is a sacrament and thank heavens for that, for if all men wanted to become Priests and all women nuns, that would be it for the human race! lol

 

[The_Reginator]

There seems to be a pattern. The number of men becoming priests and brothers seems to sore for certain periods and then it drops down for another hundred years or so, maybe more. We had not seen as many men entering since after the French Revolution. There was a surge in men entering diocesan seminaries, priestly congregations and congregations of religious brothers. Then it quieted down by 1825 until 1945.

If we look at the books kept by both dioceses and by religious orders, we can actually graph the phenomenon. The surges seem to coincide with such tragedies as great wars and other social political movements that seem to send everyone back to Church and prayer.

The numbers are back to normal and the quality of the men is excellent.

This begs the question. What has the middle class done to shoot itself in the foot so that young men looking at the priesthood prefer to join communities such as the Franciscans of the Renewal, Missionaries of the Poor, Franciscans of the Immaculate, Benedictine monks, or missionary communities such as Fr. Corapi’s community, SOLTs?

We have to ask these questions and find the answers soon or we’re facing a future of middle class parishes without priests.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Your post, Brother, has got me thinking of the bigger picture.
What about all religious? My impression is that we are getting very few new nuns, monks, etc.
I know that there have been some convents closing in my area over the last few decades.
This could be a new thread, but first, what do you know about this Br. JR?

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

We live in a society where sex is overrated

This I actually agree with. Is it just me do or do the religious crowd have a reactionary tendency to underrate it in response to that?

 

[sidbrown]

Vatican II did no such thing. Things like this happened after Vatican II, not because of Vatican II.

So Vatican II was not a contributing cause to the meltdown in the Church that occurred in the last 50 years? How can you be sure that Vatican II had nothing at all to do with things such as the astronomical increase in marriage annulments, the appearance of clown Masses, Halloween Masses, rock and roll Masses, Puppet Masses, the appearance of women dressed in revealing outfits as Eucharistic ministers, the breakdown in solid catechetical instruction, fewer people going to confession, etc.

 

[JReducation]

Your post, Brother, has got me thinking of the bigger picture.
What about all religious? My impression is that we are getting very few new nuns, monks, etc.
I know that there have been some convents closing in my area over the last few decades.
This could be a new thread, but first, what do you know about this Br. JR?

The principles are the same, because these men and women all live in the same historical context. If you look at the post French Revolution Church you will see an explosion of vocations to religious life for men and women who are not priests.

For example, sisters came into existence during the late 1600s or so. There were no sisters prior to that. There were only nuns. Suddenly, along comes Vincent de Paul and there is an explosion of this new kind of woman religious that the Church could not figure out. It was a novelty. It happened in France. The sisters came into existence. The two big movements were the Daughters of Charity and the Sisters of St. Joseph, both French. Then came the other sisters.

Along came John Baptist de La Salle and the apostolic brothers exploded on the scene with he arrival of the Christian Brothers, another novelty. The brothers did not cause such a stir in the Church, because we have had brothers and religious orders for brothers since before Jesus. The Carmelites were the first and they were all brothers. Later came the Benedictines and Franciscans. The Bennies and the Franks were the first communities of brothers to allow priests to join them. But the apostolic brother was a novelty. Prior to that the brothers were itinerant preachers or contemplatives, and they did some corporal works of mercy on a case by case basis.

However, after the dust settled and the Church quickly scuttled to add some new laws to the Code of Canon Law, in order to incorporate the sisters into the religious life of the Church as well as the apostolic brothers, the numbers went down during the 1800s. They exploded again around 1945. They had novitiates of 100+ . That was unheard of.

When the numbers went down to normal, 5-10 novices per year, you suddenly had these communities with many old religious and very few young ones to support them. They had to close down religious houses and consolidate. There is no way that 50 sisters under the age of 50 can run 20 houses with over 200 sisters age 65 and above. The same thing happened to the apostolic brothers: Christian Brothers, Marists, Marianists, Xaverians, Good Shepherd, Alexians, and others.

Then there was the question of mission and vision. Pope John XXIII and Pope Paul VI challenged these sisters and brothers. They called their major superiors on the carpet. These communities had been founded to serve the poor. Well, by 1965 they were serving the middle class. One or two middle class schools or middle class hospitals to help pay for the cost of the poor schools and hospitals was OK with the Vatican. But one or two poor schools and hospitals and 10 middle class schools and hospitals did not fly with the Vatican. Pope John XXIIII and Pope Paul VI charged these superors with disobedience to the founders.

Combine the drop in new members with the fact that they could no longer take on new projects among the middle class and you have many Catholic communities without Catholic schools and hospitals, especially in the developed nations. They still run many schools and hospitals in the poor nations. Today there is reorganization so that many teaching sisters and brothers are back in schools, but exclusively to educate immigrants, migrant workers, urban poor and rural poor. In order to do this, they have to hussle to get the money. These folks work hard. They have these institutions among the poor and they have larger numbers of elderly members than they did in the post war era.

What we are seeing is a rebirth of the Dominican sisterhood. The Dominican sisters are in a very special place. They were not founded for the poor. They were founded to teach and preach, period, poor and rich alike.

The monks are restructuring. They are not really decreasig in numbers. But they are reorganizing their houses. Many of them depended on certain industries to support themselves. As the economy went south, so did these industries. Most monks were farmers. Like every other farmer in this country, they too have felt the pinch. Of course, to get vocations, you have to be in a place where people can see you. If you have to relocate, that creates some challenges. When you go to a new place, it takes time for people to know you and to pick up new members.

Cloistered nuns are not doing as poorly. They are organized differently and they have never had the hundreds of novices. In my own Franciscan family, we have about 20,000 Poor Clares around the world. That’s outstanding. The Carmelites have even more and so do the Benedictines. But each house gets from 1 - 5 novices per year. That’s still less than they got from 1945 to 1965.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[JReducation]

So Vatican II was not a contributing cause to the meltdown in the Church that occurred in the last 50 years? How can you be sure that Vatican II had nothing at all to do with things such as the astronomical increase in marriage annulments, the appearance of clown Masses, Halloween Masses, rock and roll Masses, Puppet Masses, the appearance of women dressed in revealing outfits as Eucharistic ministers, the breakdown in solid catechetical instruction, fewer people going to confession, etc.

What Vatican II said and what people did on their own initiative are not the same thing. In addition, these examples that you give did not affect the number of men and women entering the priesthood and religious life. These examples as well as the decline in numbers are part of a larger social phenomenon that took place inside and outside the Church.

People went desperately seeking the modern culture to bring it into the Church, hoping to bring modern man into the Church. Unfortunatey, modern man ran faster in the opposite direction. Did these folks make a mistake? Yes they did. Did Vatican II tell them to do so? No it did not.

Vatican II mandated that all members of religious orders return the vision and mission of their founders. It also demanded that secular priests cease imitating the religiuos in their formation and their daily lives and recover their secular state, because many diocesan seminaries were like little monasteries with all of the same practices and customs as religious.

What many people who led formation programs for diocesan priests did was not what the Council asked. The Council and the Church today, still aks that secular seminarians be disciplined in prayer and study. This has not changed. What it also asked was that they not be submitted to horariums that they had borrowed from religious houses and customs borrowed from religious houses, such as community living. Because these men are not going to live in communities. They have to regulate their own prayer life. They have to develop their own spirituality, not a collective spirituality, as religious do. They were not Benedictines or Augustinians, but many diocesan seminaries taught their men to follow the spirituality of the Benedictines or the Augustinians. The Council mandated that the men be trained so that they could pray, discern and follow a spirituality that was suited to each individual, and that they be encouraged to live the Christian life in a manner appropriate to a priest, without mimicking friars or monks.

The formators went south with this. They stopped teaching prayer, asceticism and other forms of the spiritual life and seminaries became like any other college. That was not the vision of Vatican II nor the mandate. The mandate was very simple. Train them to be holy secular men and prepare them to be holy priests, not holy consecrated men. Consecrated men are good, but this is not the call of the diocesan priest. He is not called to be a conscrated religious. He is called to be a priest. His spirtuality should be that of a priest, not a friar or a monk, even though many friars and monks are also priests. But those priests who are friars and monks, are supposed to live the spirituality of their orders. No so for the diocesan clergy, unless the individual wants to do so privately. In that case, the formators were to help the individual grow in the spirituality that he chose.

Rather than do that, which meant individualizing formation, spiritual formation was simply dropped. That’s not what the Council mandated.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[TheresaLS]

I still believe the #1 reason individuals do not think about religious life is SACRIFICE. Society today is ME oriented…where does the fault lay??? With parents and religious. Be joyful in whatever vocation you choose and accept the rules as you proceed.

 

[JReducation]

I still believe the #1 reason individuals do not think about religious life is SACRIFICE. Society today is ME oriented…where does the fault lay??? With parents and religious. Be joyful in whatever vocation you choose and accept the rules as you proceed.

What you’re describing is what Pope Benedict keeps calling the “secular culture”. He’s not talking about secular as in those who are not consecrated religious. He’s talking about secular as in “me centered”. I believe that you are very right in saying that it is a very strong influence in how people see themselves.

Sometimes I also believe that those periods where the world was in crisis, such as between WW I and WW II drew many people closer to God. Everytime the world enters a period of prosperity and progress, men forget that God is there. The rise and fall in the numbers of men entering the priesthood seems to correlate to these periods. Prosperity, the numbers go down. Crisis, the numbers go up.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Formosus]

I completely agree that celibacy is only a facet in the issue of declining vocations. But I also don’t see the conflict in saying that celibacy is preferred as a priest. Practically speaking it leaves them free to serve the church without any conflict from family. It does not speak poorly of married priests, nor does it deny the fatherly dimension of celibate priests. **My understanding is that married priests were members of another faith who practiced as ministers, and through conversion have been allowed to continue religious life. What a joy to have them in the church. However, for those who are unmarried Catholics discerning the priesthood, the church teaches that there is a reason for celibacy.
**
"1579 All the ordained ministers of the Latin Church, with the exception of permanent deacons, are normally chosen from among men of faith who live a celibate life and who intend to remain celibate "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven."70 Called to consecrate themselves with undivided heart to the Lord and to "the affairs of the Lord,"71 they give themselves entirely to God and to men. Celibacy is a sign of this new life to the service of which the Church’s minister is consecrated; accepted with a joyous heart celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God.72 "

Your understanding is only correct concerning the Latin Church. There are 22 other Catholic Churches in union with the Pope whom do not have such a restriction as to ordaining only celibate men. It is my opinion that a priest should never be alone. That is why parish clergy should primarily be married men and celibate priests should be members of a religious order. This is how the East has always done things (and how the west did it for the first 1000 years of Christianity). Either way, my whole point in bringing up married clergy is to show that modern youth aren’t running away from the Priesthood because of celibacy, and I think Edward (above) and Br. JR explain that point excellently.

 

[Impertinens]

Even disregarding the celibacy issue, it is a poorly paid, physically, emotionally and intellectually exhausting profession which does not even get that much respect nowadays, has very strict obedience requirements towards your superiors and leaves you no honorable way of changing careers if you get tired of it.

You’d have to be mad to even consider it. MAD!

And, I think, this is exactly the point: it is a supernatural calling, not a profession, and it is not supposed to be attractive from a purely material standpoint…

 

[scimitar60]

To answer the original question…

I’ll tell you why. I’m 16 years old and have examined the possibility of the Priesthood. And you know what? Even though I don’t THINK I’m being called, acknowledging the possibility was extremely difficult. Do you understand the pressure young men are under by society not to consider such things? My family (cafeteria Catholics) would be extremely disappointed. I think there would be a huge argument and a falling out, because they would see me choosing the Priesthood as a waste of my life. It’s a very frightening prospect.

Society also does not make being a celibate man married to the Church performing Mass every Sunday appear very sexy, fun, or exciting. And young men want all three.

Couldn’t be said better.

Same here mate, I sometimes consider a religious job or profession yet I stop because I know my parents, and most of my other family members will laugh at me.

 

[Ichthys4121517]

The main reason I don’t think I’d be a good priest is the awkwardness of having to hear and absolve sins in Reconciliation. Yes, it’s actually Christ doing the forgiving, I know that. But I just can’t imagine myself listening to people’s deepest, darkest secrets about how sinful they really are. Even though I’d expect to hear the worst, it would still be very uncomfortable to actually hear it. Not to mention the hate I’d receive from non-Catholics. I’d love to be able to help others learn the truth, but Lord knows I don’t have the wisdom and patience to do that, with all the secular bias in the modern world.

Now that I think about it, marriage doesn’t seem that appealing, either. I simply don’t like little kids for one thing, and fatherhood has become such a joke lately (thank you very much, sitcoms). Then there’s this problem: As a teenager who (not to boast) is intelligent and moral enough to avoid being indoctrinated by the secular media, I don’t like the lack of trust parents have for their children these days; I roll my eyes at overprotective fathers of daughters, for example.

Yet, if I were a parent, to be quiet honest, I would be extremely paranoid about making sure my kids don’t drift away from the Church, to the point of restricting their access to the Internet and TV. I’d be a hypocrite, though, because the Internet is exactly what helped me to learn about my faith and why it is worth defending. I don’t trust the future generation to be as intelligent as I am, basically. I think that’s how most people are, deep down. Maybe I’m missing something. Perhaps I have much to learn.

 

[Romanova]

Couldn’t be said better.

Same here mate, I sometimes consider a religious job or profession yet I stop because I know my parents, and most of my other family members will laugh at me.

Years ago, I dated a young man who was within days of entering a religious order, only to back out of it when his parents screamed at him and threatened to disown him and never speak to him if he did that. They ridiculed him and laid on the guilt. He was an only child, and a convert – his atheist parents definitely did not understand why he would feel called to a life of celibacy and service. Throughout our relationship, I always had a nagging thought that he was, in fact, called to a religious vocation.

We broke up and we both ended up marrying other people eventually, but I’ve always wondered in the back of my mind whether he really had a vocation to marriage, or whether he had a religious vocation but was diverted from that true calling by his parents’ extreme reaction.

Whether or not he had a religious vocation, it was absolutely awful that his parents behaved that way. Even sadder, I know there are Catholic parents whose reactions wouldn’t be too different. Those of us who are parents should encourage our children always to follow God’s call in their lives, whatever that call might be.

 

[JReducation]

I think that we cannot answer the OP unless we speak about Jesus. Whether a man becomes a priest or a brother, whether he enters the diocesan seminary or joins a religious order, whether he becomes one (priest) or the other (religious) or both (priest and religious) it all boils down to Jesus.

We live in a world where Jesus has been reduced to a historical person and we have lost sight of the fact that he is present today as he was in Palestine some 2000 years ago. It is difficult to commit your life to Christ, either by sharing his priesthood or by sharing his brotherhood, unless you can see Jesus as priest and brother.

For that to happen, it has to happen in the home. We have, not mistakenly, limited Jesus to be a friend. He is a friend. We can see that very clearly in his relationship with the Apostles and the people of his time. He was their friend. For me, this becomes most evident in two areas of scripture. He and John the Apostle have a very intimate relationship. John is the Beloved Disciple. Another area is area is when the children come to him. He was obviously well known to them and was a friendly chap whom the kids liked very much. Why else would they run up to him.

However, the modern family fails to see that Jesus is friend and more. He is also priest and brother. This side of Christ is lost in modern families and modern catechesis. In essence, we have reduced Jesus. Jesus wants to be our friend, our brother and our priest, all three.

Then there is the problem with the way that we use the words of scripture and tradition. We speak of Jesus as the Son of God. To many young people, this wording is misleading. Because it does not clearly state that, he is God. If you just bypass exactly how Jesus is the Son of God, he becomes a son like the rest of us. In that case, the mystical side of the relationship between us and Jesus is lost in words that are used: “brother” and “Son of God”. Well, we are all brothers and we are all sons and daughters of God. Therefore, there is nothing else about Jesus that we would need to desire or wish to share.

Like John Paul II, I believe that the men and women of today are generous and want to find God. They want to serve God. But we are failing, at home and in catechesis by not exposing our sons and daughters to the totality of Jesus.

It’s too easy to blame it on the Church, the seminaries, the religious orders and so forth. As Pope Benedict XVI said every generation seems to find a group to use as a whipping boy, because it makes us feel that we’re not failing. Other people are failing.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF