www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Priest shortage..crisis of faith, not celibacy

AMEN!

Priest shortage stems from crisis of faith, ignorance of the infinite, not celibacy, say Bishops

http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=5136

Certainly. Of course I also believe in flying saucers, the apparitions at Bayside, that President Eisenhower was a dedicated Communist agent . . . you get the idea.

Incognitus

Christ is in our midst!! He is and always will be!!!

A caveat: What I post here is not a broad brush with which I am indicting all Catholic clergy at this time or during the past 40 years. Many faithful clergy have struggled to be faithful to the Church, to her teaching, to their vows, to their commitment and have very often not been supported to the extent that they should. I've tried to provide support to clergy by word and deed, publicly and privately.

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If the priestly shortage stems from a "crisis in faith," it might be well to examine the situation of the last 40 years to see why. Many priests left the priesthood after the Vatican Council when it seemed that others, who had themselves already lost their own faith, gained the upper hand in the reform. All kinds of silliness went on and the discipline so many had learned in their own seminary days was seemingly tossed out the window. I believe, from living through so much of it and from so many conversations with clergy over the past 39 years, that the "crisis in faith" ought to be seen as something generated by the state of the priesthood itself immediately after the Council.

Some saw it coming. I'll never forget my pastor telling me about the time I graduated from high school (1968) that in the future one "would not be able to trust his parish priest (in matters of faith) because of the direction that the seminaries were going." He advised that one would have to know the faith and be very careful of the clergy that one would trust. He was referring to a newly ordained Jesuit who was a native of the parish and others like him. This young priest was constantly making negative comments about people and their old-fashioned devotions and their old-fashioned faith. He was constantly chiding the altar servers to "loosen up" and made fun of our reverence when we served. My pastor at that time has long since retired and died. But the Jesuit is now a seminary professor and his attitude is the same or worse. He has nothing but contempt for those who express faith in anything but liberal terms or in whatever passing fad seems to have the attention of the academics at the moment.

Another factor is that the media is far better at uncovering secrets in this day and age than it seemed to do in the past. Aside from the abuse scandal, stories of priests being treated poorly by their bishops don't seem to stay secret these days. It seems that so many young men who might have a vocation take a long look at the circumstances under which they would work. There seems to be no shortage of young people who love the Lord with great passion. Many just don't seem to care for a life butting heads with a human bishop who treats his priests with far less Christian charity than ought to be.

Another factor is the time that many clergy spend with young people. So many don't seem to have the time to spend with young people. They avoid youth conferences and youth activities. They've always got something else to do or something else that conflicts.

A "crisis of faith"? Sure thing. But it stems from the very place where the Cardinals hope to recruit new members to. If our faith models fail, there will be nothing attractive to draw new men to be future faith models. There is a great gulf between the recruiting rhetoric and the reality. And that gulf is no longer something a man finds out about after ordination. It's something that can be readily seen early in one's discernment process.

IMHO, they've got the vocatins crisis backwards. The "crisis in faith" stems from a crisis in the priesthood in an earlier generation.
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Again, my apologies to the faithful Catholic clergy here and throughout the world. This is NOT meant to be a blanket condemnation of any of you. You struggle in an uphill battle and your ranks are aging. It is tougher and tougher to find one of you to have as a confessor and spiritual father. These are just some observations that I have from being keenly interested in the situation and being an open ear for some of your brothers to vent.

In Christ,

BOB

I apologize if anyone thought I was saying that our priests have a crisis of faith. I meant that the laity have a problem. When people are telling their sons they don't need to be priests or they need to work someplace that they can make money. That it a problem of putting faith in the world and not faith in Jesus Christ. The priorities are all messed up.

There is a young man in our church who wants to be a priest, he is the first of his siblings of which there are five. The parents are fine with him becoming a priest, really happy and excited about it. His grandparents are another problem. They think it is totally ridiculous that he would choose to give up the world and be a priest.

I know another young man who wants to be priest. He had been talking with the bishop over a period of time, and finally he and the bishop decided it was time he should talk with his dad who he had really be dreading talking too. He is now in his thrid year of college, when they went to talk to his dad, his dad grounded him, took his computer because he spent time in a Catholic chat room and talked to others about his faith, took all of his Bibles - well you get the picture.

People are placing their faith in the world not in God. That is a crisis of faith.

Pani Rose

I was editing my post and timed out so here is the revision.

Bob,

Your points are very valid. The majority of our priests though that are just awesome men of God. Faithful to their calling, dening themsleves and truly carring the cross of Christ forward. There are really only a few rotten ables, which make it look bad for everyone. I thank God for these wonderful life giving men of God who have given their all to feed us in the Word and the Eucharist.

I guess we know that the priesthood has gone through crisis before and survived to be even stronger becasue it is the Holy Spirit who guides the Church. The sixties generation of which I am a part, really made a mess of things, I am so thankful for the faith of our children, they are going back to Jesus. Abandoning the nonsence that we brought to the world, letting the light of Christ shine on them.

I apologize if anyone thought I was saying that a lot of our priests have a crisis of faith. Though there are many who do, those who do not teach according to the magisterium of the Church are the ones I speak of. I actually meant that the laity have a problem. When people are telling their sons they don't need to be priests or they need to work someplace that they can make money. That it a problem of putting faith in the world and not faith in Jesus Christ. The priorities are all messed up.

There is a young man in our church who wants to be a priest, he is the first of his siblings of which there are five. The parents are fine with him becoming a priest, really happy and excited about it. His grandparents are another problem. They think it is totally ridiculous that he would choose to give up the world and be a priest.

I know another young man who wants to be priest. He had been talking with the bishop over a period of time, and finally he and the bishop decided it was time he should talk with his dad who he had really be dreading talking too. He is now in his thrid year of college, when they went to talk to his dad, his dad grounded him, took his computer because he spent time in a Catholic chat room and talked to others about his faith, took all of his Bibles - well you get the picture.

Both of these young men are Eastern Rite. People are placing their faith in the world not in God. That is a crisis of faith.

Pani Rose

Pani Rose:

Please read my caveat again. I agree that there are many priests who are fully dedicated to their vocation and to nourishing God's People by Word, by Sacrament, and by example. That having been said, they are also struggling to do so.

A faith community--a parish--is a nurturing ground for vocations, as is the home church. And the nourishment that both these portions of the Lord's Vineyard receive comes from our priests. Before that, the faith of our priests is formed in the seminary, even when it was a strong faith gift from the Lord in the first place.

Many are the stories of those who have gone off to seminary and had their faith destroyed or severely weakened. The stories are legion of men who have run that gauntlet and arrived at their first or second or third assignment and who are very unhappy people. Serving the Lord and His People--if that were all that were to it--is a difficult enough task without some of the problems attendant with the institution. But for vocations to grow, you've got to see men who are overjoyed at doing what they are doing. They can't be demoralized or on the way to being burnt out.

The problem, as I see it, is almost the same circular one involving the question of the chicken and the egg--which came first? The Cardinals have decided that on the circle that there is a crisis of faith and that is why the numbers of priestly candidates are down. My thesis is that the crisis of faith stems from a priestly crisis. In any event, I think it is fair to say that the situation feeds on itself. Crisis of faith leads to less vocations which leads to priestly crisis which leads to more crisis of faith.

I guess it depends on where on the circle one starts.
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Re: the young man who was "grounded" for expressing a desire to become a priest.

When my son was confirmed as a Junior in high school, our bishop preached about parental interference in the lives of those young people who expressed a desire to follow the Lord as a priest or religious. He said that at his ad limina visit to Rome, Pope John Paul II had made it plain to the bishops that parents had no right to try to stop vocations. He said that JP had said further that to force a young person to pursue a vocation other than the one to which God called him or her--or to spend a year at a secular school to "test" that vocation--was wrong. He went further: if the Church, which is the only entity that is to test vocations, never gets the chance to test the vocation or if the young person loses his or her vocation, that parent has done the work of anti-Christ because that parent has worked directly against the will of Christ. The bishop ended the homily by saying that the Holy Father finished his talk to the bishops by saying that those who do the work of anti-Christ on earth will never enter the Kingdom of Christ in eternity. The bishop said that the Holy Father had stressed to them that this was something he was binding with the Power of the Keys and that he was giving them the obligation to preach this message.

By the end of that homily, I was breathless. You see, my father sorted all the mail coming into our little town and every seminary application I ever sent for was thrown into the garbage as soon as it arrived in our post office. It wasn't until years later that I learned why I couldn't seem to get my own vocation off the ground: my father told my brother to tell me.

I'll pray for this young man and for the softening of his father's heart.

In Christ,

BOB

Have any of the bishops addressed the fact that Catholics [and Orthodox] are contracepting at the rate of the worldlings, and this no doubt has an effect on vocations?
If a family has 5 or 10 children, they are much likelier to give 1 or 2 to the Lord than if they have 2; who wants to sacrifice having grandchildren, by all accounts one of the great joys of life?
A crisis of faith, indeed, starting with the laity.
-Daniel

I agree Dan. I could not have said it better myself.



-ray

Ray,

I was sorely tempted to answer the question but then I would have assured that I'd never be ordained. So I erased it. Later, my friend, later.

Dan L

BTW I suspect that many posters on this board know why we don't ordain more priests. It seems almost intentional.

Carson:

See "Goodbye, Good Men."

Will add your vocation to my list of seminarians and those discerning a vocation that I pray for.

In Christ,

BOB

Bob I understand what you are saying and it is truly a very good point.

I am so sorry that your vocation was weighlaid like that. God is true to his calling and he will use your posterity. Surely God has forgiven your father, he did not understand. You have shown forth the love of God to so many in your life which makes up for a multitude of sins.

Thank you for praying for that young man. I pray that God will give him the strength to become who Christ has called him to be, inside and out, so that God will be glorified in all things.

Pani Rose

Bob,

Thank you for your prayers. If I'm never ordained at least I can be an evangelist for our wonderful Church and our wonderful Lord.

I used to make "Good Bye, Good Men" required reading in my Theo. 101 courses. It got too depressing for my students. So, I stopped requiring it. I wonder if there are any books or major articles about the demise of some of those corrupting seminaries and Churches described there which includes positive reports about some of our newer colleges?

CDL

CDL:

From what I hear Bishop Bruskewicz' (sp?) seminary in Lincoln, Nebraska is filled to capacity. He has no shortage of vocations among young men eager to serve Christ and His People. I've also read that he puts up with no one "coloring outside the lines." He is reputed to be one of the few bishops who is a solid theologian and he has tough standards for orthodoxy and commitment.

But it seems that that is precisely what the current generation of young men is looking for.

Archbishop Chaput (I believe in Denver, CO) also is reputed to have established a new seminary that is doing as well.

Probably the reason that these are not well known is that our liberal media blanches at the words that would describe these institutions: discipline, respect, reverence, orthodoxy--you get the picture.

It might well be, too, that these two bishops are very much interested in their seminarians and their priests. That is a big factor. No one wants to work under a bishop who is only there to call one on the carpet when there is some complaint, but who is distant and unavailable the rest of the time.

In Christ,

BOB

Pani Rose:

I've long since reconciled myself to the fact that God can bring good out of even the worst situations and even those that we may think are the worst but which are not really that way.

My vocation has been to be a person who supports priests, unconditionally. I lend an ear with the understanding that the specifics of what I hear will go no further. I encourage and pray for a long list of priests by name each day. The list only gets longer. The only time it gets shorter is when I learn that one of my brethren has "gone on to bigger and better things" and I switch his name to the list of those who have gone before us to the Kingdom.

My current confessor tells me that sometimes he thinks that the work we funeral directors do is more important thatn the work priests do when it comes to dealing with people who are grieving. Some clergy have a tough time dealing with death and that's not a fault. Hey, I'd rather deal with a wedding than a funeral, but the hard fact is that people die and it's never at a "convenient" time.

Currently I work with people who need to navigate the Medicaid system--whether putting their loved one into skilled nursing care or the poor who apply for health benefits; people applying for SSI, subsidized housing, prescription drug cards, etc. Preneed Funeral Plans are exempt if they are structured properly in all these programs and my niche has become very complex with applying the regulations to specific cases. I help people qualify for any and all of these programs. Am I doing the Lord's work? Well, I'm hoping when He comes for me that He thinks so: "whatever you have done for the least of My brethren, that you have done for Me."

In the meantime, I've been blessed with two great children that I have been called to show by word and example the unconditional love of God the Father by being a good father. Have I been perfect at it? Surely not perfect by anyone's measure. :rolleyes: But I have shown them what an imperfect man struggling to measure up does and says and why.

So all is not lost. That sermon did give me the chills, though.

The interesting part of it all, though, is that if a second career opportunity were available, this would be my time. My children are grown and out of college--more importantly, both are gainfully employed. I'm in a position where I would follow that call now if married men were to be admitted to seminaries. But I don't see that happening.

In Christ,

BOB