Priest Support Working Group Needs Your Help!
Submitted by John Ryan
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I ask if you could help us (the Priest Support Working Group) get some feedback from priests you know, or know of, who might be willing to help shed some light on this perplexing matter by posting a comment on our website (www.nwgps.org).
I paste below an excerpt from our statement on the Vocation Crisis which appears on the Home Page of the website, and where I ask that you refer such priests to post their comments.
This entails nothing more on your part than sending them an email along with this excerpt, how to access our website, and an invitation to post a comment. Please mention to them that they will be able to do so anonymously if desired.
It would be marvelous, and breaking new ground I believe, if we could get a few priests from every affiliate to shed some light on this matter. Even just two priests from half of our affiliates would bring in close to one hundred comments!
Please do what you can to support this effort. Please forward this message to others in your affiliates.
An official Church perspective cites the rise of secularism, lack of commitment by young people, and loss of a “feeder system”:
In remarks to the 2005 convention of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors (NCDVD), Father Edward J. Burns, Executive Director of the US Bishops’ Committee on Vocations and Priestly Formation, said the environment for breeding vocations is not what it used to be. The report of Father Burn’s comments was published on the Catholic News Service Web site (Oct. 3, 2005). The rise of secularism, materialism, careerism, and the lack of commitment among young people do not generate vocations, the report noted. Catholic schools use to be feeder systems to seminaries. Religious sisters use to be prominent fixtures in schools and parishes to offer words of encouragement and to plant seeds of priestly vocations. “With today’s secularization we don’t have the feeder system we used to. The materialism of society fosters a lack of commitment among young people and a feeling to live life for one’s self.”
Priests not fostering vocations:
In this same presentation, Fr. Burns cited a 2001 survey showing that only 30 percent of diocesan and religious priests in the US actively invited men to the priesthood. Note that this study pre-dates the public disclosure in 2002 of the clergy sex abuse scandal.
Fr. Burns went on to say that “What inhibits priests from inviting young men to the priesthood is a matter for speculation.”
He reiterated this statistic in his presentation at the 2007 National Federation of Priests’ Councils conference in Tampa, FL.
