Posted on 10/30/2013 1:57:06 PM PDT by markomalley
I saw this at CWN:
Curial official: over 3,000 religious leave consecrated life each year [Makes you wonder how many enter religious life. I'll bet not 3k!]
The secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life said in an October 29 address that over 3,000 men and women religious leave the consecrated life each year.
In the address – a portion of which was reprinted in L’Osservatore Romano [HERE] – Archbishop José Rodríguez Carballo said that statistics from his Congregation, as well as the Congregation for the Clergy, indicate that over the past five years, 2,624 religious have left the religious life annually. When one takes into account additional cases handled by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the number tops 3,000.
The prelate, who led the Order of Friars Minor from 2003 until his April 2013 curial appointment, said that the majority of cases occur at a “relatively young age.” The causes, he said, include “absence of spiritual life,” “loss of a sense of community,” and a “loss of sense of belonging to the Church” – a loss manifest in dissent from Catholic teaching on “women priests and sexual morality.” [read: LCWR]
Other causes include “affective problems,” including heterosexual relationships that continue into marriage and homosexual relationships, which are “most obvious in men, but also present, more often than you think, between women.” [No more often than I thought!]
The world, the prelate continued, is undergoing profound changes from modernity to postmodernity – from fixed reference points to uncertainty, doubt, and insecurity. In a market-oriented world, “everything is measured and evaluated according to the utility and profitability, even people.” It is “a world where everything is soft,” where “there is no place for sacrifice, nor for renunciation.” [The problem, however, is not just that the "world" has gone that way, but that the world's way as been permitted wholesale into the Church and into these religious institutes with virtually no resistance at all.]
In a culture of neo-individualism and subjectivism, he added, “the individual is the measure of everything,” and people feel “unique in excellence.” “Modern man talks a lot” but “cannot communicate in depth.” [Yes. Yet another reason for me to call for, once again, a deeper theology of communication, beginning with Christ as the true communicator.]
The solution, he said, is a renewed attention to the centrality the Triune God in religious life, which in turn “brings with it the gift of oneself to others.” There must be a clear emphasis on the “radical nature of the Gospel,” rather than the “number of members or the maintenance of works.” [Your Excellency... until we have our LITURGICAL WORSHIP squared away again, no other effort of renewal can be effective.]
Nobody’s making “positive” comments - just discussion.
Anyway, I was just curious. You can stop replying now :-).
They can’t help it; it’s a knee-jerk reaction, I guess...
Excellent point. I was a seminarian (Carmelite). Was in my first year of simple vows, and discerned that it wasn’t my vocation. I wonder if I would have wound up in this metric?
While there are times that I almost yearn to join the religious life, I realize that it must be very challenging. It cannot be an easy life, and I can imagine that only a small percentage of people are capable of accepting its rigours.
I assume so; you were in "religious life."
I've known several men over the years who were seminarians, but chose otherwise some time before ordination. I don't know if they'd be counted.
I also met one ex-priest - he was dating a coworker at That Insurance Company, a flaky but very interesting lady - and I was told that the man who was our pastor in Norman, OK, eventually left the priesthood.
I think that many people perceive the religious vocation as difficult, and the married vocation as easy. To that I say, “Unnngh.”
The one thing I would say, is something I remember from my Novice Master. He told us that our Novitiate would be remembered as "the best year of our life". That was 35 years ago, and it's still true.
Apples and oranges. Each is difficult sui generis, and each has its own unique blessings.
********************************
I don't know about that, although I do love being married, but I was thinking more along the lines of giving up material possessions and losing my independence. How would I like having to follow a schedule, not having my own home, not being able to be alone whenever I liked?
Raising children certainly isn't easy. Being married is a snap compared to that.
That's the military. It's easy (if you're my personality type).
Raising children is a snap compared to being married, for me. I've beaten myself almost to death (literally, from starvation) trying to get my husband to be happy with me. The only thing that keeps me from anorexia-to-death is Jesus, my parents, and my kids.
Raising children is a snap compared to being married, for me. I've beaten myself almost to death (literally, from starvation) trying to get my husband to be happy with me. The only thing that keeps me from anorexia-to-death is Jesus, my parents, and my kids.
*********************************
You make a good point about the military. I'd never seen the similarities before, but now that you mention it, it seems clear. :) The uniforms, the scheduling, the group meals, group tasks, use of weapons..
Heaven knows I'm not the same person that I was when my husband and I first met, but then, neither is he. Constant dieting-I can't do it these days, nor can I run two and a half to three miles a day. My body isn't the same, nor is my stamina.
I’m good at losing weight. It’s an Achievement, and it’s something I can even if nobody else cooperates. My mom and my Weight Watchers meeting nag me if I get too thin!
Very interesting!
What individual with a serious thought to a religious vocation, or anyone with a religious bent wouldn’t want to invest a whole year doing nothing but pray, work, and attend classes on things like spirituality (Carmelite in my case) and religious history? It really was the most wonderful year of my life, and I’ll always be thankful for it.
It does sound wonderful! I often wish I could go back to college now that I’m not a ditzy young adult, but a religious novitiate would be cool, too.
Any activity in which everyone else can go to the bathroom on their own would be great, for that matter. Breaking rocks in the hot sun would be okay!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.