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Vatican faces ‘urgent’ need for priests with new vocations guidelines
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In an effort to respond to a “clear and pressing” need for priests, the Vatican released a set of guidelines to help bishops and church communities promote, recruit and educate a new generation of men for the priesthood.
The church needs “suitable” candidates and must avoid men who “show signs of being profoundly fragile personalities,” while helping others heal from any possible “individual deviations” from their vocations, the document said.
“The witness of Christian communities giving account of the faith that is in them becomes even more necessary,” because it’s a community of believers committed to passing on God’s love that “prepares the Lord’s call that invites people to consecration and mission,” it said.
Based on responses to a questionnaire sent to bishops’ conferences and directors of national vocations offices around the world in 2008, the Congregation for Catholic Education sought to address a widespread demand for pastoral guidelines for fostering vocations “based on clear and well-founded theology of vocation and of the identity of the ministerial priesthood.”
Titled “Pastoral Guidelines for Fostering Vocations to Priestly Ministry,” the 29-page document was released June 25. It also marked the 70th anniversary of the inauguration of the congregation’s Pontifical Work for Priestly Vocations.
The challenge of attracting men to the priesthood is made more difficult by declining birthrates in the developed world and a materialist, secular culture in which people are less likely to make “courageous and demanding Gospel choices” in their lives, the document said.
“In the West, there is a prevailing culture of indifference to the Christian faith, a culture unable to understand the value of vocations to a special consecration,” it said.
Key to turning things around isn’t just setting up new programs and initiatives, but building a vibrant, active and dedicated community of Catholics, united in prayer and with Christ, it said. [More]
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8 Comments
I have had some good experiences with nuns and priests and also some bad experiences. I am a cradle catholic who is disappointed by what I see from some priest and religious. Attending an all African-American catholic elementary school with white nuns, some were brutal. Attending a predominantly white catholic high school I could see the difference in how the races were treated, I would not want a female priest. The males they are recruiting today are to effeminate and this is causing a problem with pedophiles, we need real men, moral men and maybe men with families. My church has been through 4 priests in about 4 years. I have not been able to talk to my parish priest in years, they just will not answer an email, give you an appointent to counsel etc. After mass, they are abrupt, and appear to be very unfriendly and uncaring. The religious are actualy running me from the church. I am a middle aged woman, I am very respectful to the clergy but I notice they run from people in my age group and cater to males, the aged and children. I continue to be catholic for the Eucharist, not for the clergy and religious and the “click” running most churches. I am very alienated in my church and I am not alone, needed to vent.
Sorry, Elizabeth, that that has been your experience. I’m also glad to hear that you are Catholic for exactly the right reason: to be on the receiving end of the richest graces on Earth. With regard to the priests needing to me real men, and not so effeminate: I totally agree. I have posted this exact comment many times here. The Catholic Church, and Christians in general, have feminized Jesus; but the Scriptural accounts of Him show Him to be a real man, with masculine attributes — unlike modern priests in the USA. Thank you for your post, and may the Blessed Mother secure for you graces necessary to keep you in the Church. BTW, here’s a suggestion: if there is a local Eucharistic Adoration chapel, or Adoration at times at your church, you most definitely should go. I have been going at least one hour per week for years, and my wife once told me that it is the very best thing I ever have done for our marriage. It has been the greatest accelerant for my pursuit of God and His paths of righteousness.
We are praying for vocation and God is answering our prayers, but we don’t see it, because those God is calling are women.
Benedict failed to add: “Women are unacceptable.”
Vatican II gave us The Church in the Modern World, Lumens Gentia, New Liturgical norms and subsicquently I will give you Shepards by JP II. I think the prayer of the Church has been answered the church continues to focus on the wrong structure
Maybe theybshould look towards the Episcopal Church for married, female, and gay clergy who could then convert to Catholicism and continue their ministry there.
The vatican strives to find vocations when many already exist, which they are ignoring-among women.
And all those married Priests who were forced to leave the Preiesthood. The Vatican’s list does not include the problem of ineffective Priests and Bishops who fail to energize their faith communities.