[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

[Tantumergo]

"The bulk of the bishops will eventually come from the sort that we have here."

I sure hope so!

On the subject of the characteristics of current intake to seminaries, I was at a day of lectures last week by a retired bishop who was at all sessions of Vatican II and considers himself to be "an authority".

The only encouraging thing I heard that day was when he said "I do despair of the quality of so many men entering the seminaries at the moment. They are so right wing that there is a danger they will undo all the progress we have made since the Council."

Despite his epithet of "right-wing", it did make me wonder if the tide is actually starting to turn.