Leaps of Faith: Why Indians are Signing Up as Catholic Priests

The Hindustan Times ^ | 12/20/15 | Apoorva Dutt

[marshmallow]

For five years, Omar Fernandes worked as a member of the ground staff at the Mumbai airport. The end of each day was marked by coffee and conversations with colleagues.

"Most of the men I worked with were in their 40s and 50s," says the 30-year-old. "They would talk about how miserable they were at work, how they were struggling to provide for their families. It seemed like such a hard life."

These conversations began to crystallise his resolve to become a priest. It's something he'd been thinking about for four years already. "I was 24 when I got my first promotion at work," he says, "and I felt nothing. It didn't seem to mean anything beyond more money and more participation in a meaningless rat race."

Fernandes spoke to his parish priest about this, and the priest suggested he try social work to give meaning to his life.

Fernandes, a graduate in psychology and a former state-level footballer, began volunteering at orphanages and a lepers' home run by the church.

"We would pray together, and the kind of solace that the combination of material help and spiritual guidance gave them - and me - was amazing," he says. "I remember thinking to myself, 'Okay, this makes sense. This is the life I was meant to lead'."

At 28, he told his family that he was joining a seminary. His family and friends were surprised, mainly because he had never seemed overtly religious.

But across the country, the combination of corporate ennui and a search for meaning is driving urban youngsters to the Church. In many cases, these young men had grown up - and been raised - with a very different vision of their future, one with the regular trappings of job, ambition, family and wealth.

"While a religious.....

[Tax-chick]

Thank you! It’s something many people could do, if they only knew of the opportunity. The formation of a Sister in India was only about $45 a month, iirc.

[Salvation]

**There is a dearth of American born men who wish to become a priest.**

Not really.

Do you have a Serra Club in your area? Perhaps you can start one.

Pray for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

http://serraus.org/

[Cronos]

What I don’t get from the article, or what I may have overlooked, is why are these young men choosing to devote their lives to the Christian faith vs the Hindu or Budhism of their ancestors?

These are Goans or Mangaloreans (going by their surnames) - so the last ancestors who were Hindus were probably back in the 15th century. Their families have been Christian for 500 years.

it would be like asking you why you would devote yourself to the Christian faith as opposed to the Druidic or Greek/Irish/Roman/etc. faith of your ancestors

[Cronos]

What I don’t get from the article, or what I may have overlooked, is why are these young men choosing to devote their lives to the Christian faith vs the Hindu or Budhism of their ancestors?

Also, Buddhism, while it spread heavily in the period from 300 BC to about 100 AD, died out after losing state sponsorship and most of India became Brahminical Hindu or various other "Indic religions" (remember that Hinduism is not a religion but more an umbrella term).

in South-Western India, the peoples were Brahminical Hindus, with Mangaloreans being more of Brahman background and Goans of other castes

Further south, in Kerala you have a large number of St. Thomas Christians -- these are descendents of those who St. Thomas the apostle converted in the 1st century, so 2000 years of Christianity. These may very well have been of Jewish origin - as Judeans have been in Kerala since the Babylonian persecution (600 BC) and even some Israelites from earlier (750 BC)

[Cronos]

My guess is those two faiths do not put a great importance on spreading their influence through good deeds, community services or public acts.

Hinduism is not a "faith" in the same sense as Christianity or Buddhism or Islam. It has no central book, tenets of belief etc. - it include athiests (Arya Samaj), various primary gods (shiva, vishnu, etc.) - it is analogous to calling the various "religions" of pre-Christian Europe as "Eureopan religions"

Buddhism does put a lot of importance on good deeds, community services

[Cronos]

As long as they speak understandable english and wish to live as Americans, I say, bring it on.

What has this article got to do with America? These are Christian priests for India -- India has 40 million professed Christians (and probably many more hidden)

Also, India has about 353 different languages (2 national level languages: English and Hindi and 25 official languages used in the various countries that make up the federation of India and in many places the two official languages are not known, so the priests are better off learning the local languages

[Cronos]

Actually, not “most” — about 40% are syro-malabar or Syro-Malankara and the rest are Latin rite - whether Goan or Mangalorean or Tamil or Punjabi or other nationalities.

[Tax-chick]

Thanks for the stats.

[Cronos]

Those are just statistics — you are doing the really important and relevant thing of supporting new priests.

[Tax-chick]

There’s so much to be done!