Posted on 07/06/2023 6:07:54 PM PDT by marshmallow
Rapid economic development in Asia has seen a corresponding decline in vocations in many developing countries
Church leaders have called for collective actions to address issues including economic development, changes in family structure, technological and ideological impact, poverty, and migration that contributes to a decline in priestly and religious vocation in Asia.
"In the last decades of the last century, vocations increased in Asia, but with the new century, the trend changed," said Cardinal Charles Maung Bo, president of the Federation of the Asian Bishops’ Conferences (FABC).
Bo spoke about challenges the church is facing across the world, particularly in Asia, during his keynote address at the 80th convention of Serra International, a global lay apostolate, in Chiang Mai of Thailand on June 22-25.
About 450 vocation animators including priests, religious and laypeople from various countries attended the program.
Bo said that number of vocations in Asia increased in the 1970s and the subsequent 30 years, though the “phenomenon” was not seen across Asia.
However, several countries with higher Catholic populations, such as India, Vietnam, Timor Leste, and the Philippines would nurture more vocation than others, he pointed out.
The archbishop of Yangon said that the number of men and women responding to God’s call has decreased worldwide including in Asia, adding that even countries that once boasted a good number of vocations are seeing a “downward trend.”
“We hear of dioceses that struggle to replace their aging priests and houses of formation downsizing because there are no new people to continue their ministry,” he said.
“Throughout the church’s history, we have seen the decline and revival of vocations. Perhaps we are now at a crossroads where even maintaining the existing numbers is becoming far more challenging now than before,”
Bo presented five major challenges driving the downtrend in priestly........
(Excerpt) Read more at ucanews.com ...
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