[Tantumergo]

"Cardinal Mahoney can't ordain 5 folks a year for 4 million Catholics."

Seriously!!? Are you sure you have your numbers right? (I hope you do!)

"His brand of Catholic priest is clearly dying."

From your lips to God's ear!

[sitetest]

Dear Tantumergo,

I ain't makin' it up, Tantum. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is ordaining men, on an annual basis, in the low single digits. With 4 million Catholics. You can do the arithmetic. Even if the average priest serves 50 years, that's perhaps a sustainable number of 250 diocesan priests. For 4 million Catholics and growing.

The upside, obviously, is that Cardinal Mahoney's sort of priest isn't multiplying. The downside is that in the short term, more and more of the LA Archdiocese will be run by folks even less worthy.

But priests eventually become bishops. And in places like my archdiocese, many worthy men are becoming worthy priests. And some of them are definitely worthy of the episcopate. And eventually the likes of Cardinal Mahoney will have to be replaced, and their won't be enough of his sort. The bulk of the bishops will eventually come from the sort that we have here.


sitetest