Historic dioceses are suddenly reporting no ordinations to the priesthood for the first time in their history. What’s going on?
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http://davids-ruminations.blogspot.com/2022/04/religious-orders-in-recent-times-top.html
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The bad news is priestly vocations are falling away. The good news is Jesuit vocations are falling away…
Patience, Gorby, patience all! St.Joseph, mirror of Patience, pray for us and the Church.
After hearing you out, Anthony, on this latest the vocations crisis, I would want to see more of Bishop Sheen’s
account of the Bishop who went to ALL THE LITTLE KIDS in his diocese to pray for more Priests . . “the prayers
of little children”. Or have even these littlest and youngest been corrupted? Perish the thought!
In your up-to-date current stats —highlighting the severe plummeting of vocations —plenty of discussions and meetings are on-going in significant formats and venues . . WHERE they SHOULD count, WHERE the SHOULD “light a fire” underneath restless but cushy behinds.
Yet there remains a telling absence, a silence, when no mention is made that “THE HARVEST IS GREAT” [ vocations halved; numbers of fresh generations of Catholics “through the roof “] and ” . . PRAY, THEREFORE, THE L O R D
OF THE HARVEST to send labourers into the harvest” i.e. for new vocations.
I’m thinking above all of “relentless” Eucharistic Adoration for the hoped-for [ .. but how BADLY “hoped-for”?] re-
plenishing of Vocations. Instead there seems to be a NWO stand-off, between verbose technology versus humble non-stop “knocking on Heaven’s Door” for young [“old”] men and women —through religious vows —to serve HIM and HIS Church. Instead . . WHAT ?? . . DISCUSS new vocations into existence ?? L.O.L.
Even before beginning to view your current podcast, Anthony, a memory keeps coming back . . straight from Ven.
Bishop Sheen’s autobiography, Treasure In Clay. Sheen died in 1979. In the chapter where the good Bishops deals with Vocations, he cites the example of one Bishop in whose Diocese the spectre of NO vocations was the nitty-gritty reality of the moment. In other words, in the pontificate of John XIII or Paul VI, likely not of Pius XII, certainly not of
Francis.
What did this Bishop DO? [ sorry, can’t recall names and places; off “the top of me head” here. Nevertheless let’s bear in mind that these WERE post Vatican II times.
This spiritually in-tune Bishop canvassed his whole diocese (in person) and visited every one of his grade schools,
JK-6. He simply asked the children to pray for more Priests for their Parishes. Of course, the Bishop “banked on”
the effectiveness of the “prayers of little children” in the Heart of Jesus. Well . . . .
Vocations came. LOTS of applicants for the Priesthood . . during the next two years.