Posted on 05/02/2004 5:31:38 PM PDT by Investment Biker
The most startling figure from the article was that the number of Catholic priests today was the same as in 1950, I would have assumed there would have been less today. The only explanation for the constancy in numbers from then to now is that there were priests from the Baby Boom generation. That generation is getting older, the leading edge of it is approaching sixty. In twenty years, many of the Baby Boomer priests will either be retired or deceased. The ones ahead of them will pretty much be gone.
One big factor that this article ignores is family size. Yes, Catholics still have an average family size that is larger than non-Catholic Americans, but instead of having six or more kids, its been more like three or four. When you have a lot of kids, having one, two, or three of them going into Catholic religious vocations means you're not giving up a lot of grandchildren. It sure looks different today.
The sex abuse scandals have not helped parents encourage their sons to be priests. When you read horror stories from a few seminaries, you might be more reluctant to send your son to one. It's going to take a lot more housecleaning in that area before people become OK with sending their sons off to study for the priesthood.
One possible source of new priests is from overseas. I would imagine that the Catholic church can get visas for men from poorer countries whose families would be willing to send them off to be priests in America. This would be workable in Southeast Asia, South and Central America, and even Africa. I'd look for that to happen in increasing numbers in later years.
And its always possible that a future pope might allow married priests, or even women priests. It's not impossible, though it might freak out a lot of pre-Vatican II Catholics. Many of them are fairly elderly, so it might not be a problem ten, fifteen, or twenty years from now.
Bringing men who have no concept of American culture into American culture is usually a rocky proposition.
Women priests are problematic (I don't think there's theological justification for them), but there's clearly no problem with married men being ordained priests.
Whether a future Pope drops the barrier is a matter of conjecture.
Sometimes it is, but consider the possibilities of Vietnamese priests serving the sizable Vietnamese Catholic populations in many larger cities. Similarly, a Latin American priest brought in to serve the Latino Catholic communities would find himself quite at home. Surely, the ethnic communities that these priests went into would be more than happy to familiarize a new priest with American culture. I seem to remember a lot of priests coming from Ireland to the Northwest, which was still considered "frontier" territory for the Catholic church.
Yes, it is pure speculation about women priests, but if married priests are allowed, they might not have to take that step.
Well, now, that's an entirely different proposition. Bringing a Latino in to serve Latinos makes consummate sense.
But bringing a Nigerian in to serve a pasty-faced white Anglo parish will take some patience, on the part of everybody.
What planet have you been vacationing on? There are a few good, Catholic Jesuits, even a few YOUNG Catholic Jesuits. The leadership, i.e., the Jesuit General, the Jesuit Curia in Rome, the Provincials, the university Presidents and profs, are mostly a wretched, corrupt bunch of pro-abortion sodomites.
And, they still require 13 years, after high school, for ordination to the priesthood.
Yes, but imagine what it would to to inner city Catholic parishes. Imagine a Nigerian priest telling people what poor really was!
Lighten up and don't hold your breath. We've been doing it this way for 2000 years.
They'll need to raise them up from their parishes, then, won't they?
A fairly meaningless statistic. While the nominal "Catholic" population has grown, weekly Mass attendance has plummeted since Vatican II.
So, the number of priests is about the same, and the number of people attending Mass regularly is about the same, or a bit smaller.
There are still problems, especially in "progressive" dioceses where faithful and obedient men were rejected by psychologists and feminist nuns acting as vocation directors, but, overall, it's not time to panic.
Embrace fidelity, tradition and orthodoxy, and the rest will take care of itself.
Well, they USED to be. Unfortunately, I don't think you can call them that today.
It would be great if more married men would think about being deacons. It is something that they would have to give careful consideration to, and include their wives in the decision, as, I think, most diocesan programs stress. My late f-i-l was an ordained deacon, as is my sister's husband. They worked long and hard, and it is a stressful thing if there are young kids in the family.
My b-i-l loves his work; he now runs the program in his Diocese for formation of deacons. It is a great way for men who did not want to take a vow of celibacy to serve the Church.
I agree.
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