 Quotable |
 For me, this is a time to go to the housetops. This is the time to be filled with all the energy and enthusiasm and creativity that we can get.  |
| - Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan |
Posted on 09/09/2002 6:39:02 PM PDT by Salvation
Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan has burst out of the cathedral into everyday life, drawing large crowds at parish visits and, on the day after his installation, launching a radio ad campaign for one of his top priorities: vocations.
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Anyone who didn't watch him become Milwaukee's 10th archbishop on live TV eight days ago or bump into him at one of his public appearances could catch his voice on more than 140 broadcasts of a 60-second spot on five area radio stations.
"He's moving like a tornado, and I'm just hanging on," Father Bob Stiefvater, archdiocesan vocations director, said of Dolan's outreach. "I wanted to use the good news he is creating to further a positive image for the priesthood and religious life."
Young males more accustomed to hearing metal bands such as Godsmack might have been surprised to hear Dolan's invitation to consider a vocation to the priesthood or religious life on rock stations WLZR (102.9 FM) and WLUM (102.1 FM).
And young men and women listeners to top-40 WXSS (103.7 FM), urban-music WKKV (100.7 FM) and classical-music WFMR (106.9 FM) would not have gleaned even a hint from Dolan's enthusiastic pitch that the Catholic clergy in the United States have been facing a sexual abuse crisis of historic proportions.
During an interview in the rotunda of City Hall after Mayor John O. Norquist proclaimed Wednesday as Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan Day in Milwaukee, the archbishop said, "I think now the big question that I and any Catholic leader face is, 'Are we going to retreat to the bunkers or are we going to go to the housetops?'
"And for me, this is a time to go to the housetops. This is the time to be filled with all the energy and enthusiasm and creativity that we can get."
Whenever there's been a period of dying in the church, it's been followed by a period of rising, just as in the model given to the church by the life of Jesus, he said.
"So, I'm really convinced that we've got a springtime coming up, and I just want to be in the forefront of that," said Dolan, who serves on the U.S. bishop's vocation committee and on a subcommittee that is rewriting the priestly formation program for U.S. seminaries. "And I think an increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life should be part of that springtime. So I thought, let's seize the moment, let's make hay while the sun shines."
After introducing himself in the ad, Dolan encourages single and married listeners to consider whether Jesus is asking them to take their call as committed Christians more seriously and to serve Jesus and the church in an even more generous and wholehearted way.
"Yes, by intensifying your love and service to your husband, wife, children, family, friends, classmates, community, parish, co-workers, neighbors," Dolan says in the ad. "And yes, maybe, just maybe, by considering the possibility the Lord might be calling you to serve him and his church as a priest, deacon, religious sister or brother, or professional lay minister."
The radio spots end today. The stations were chosen because they have large numbers of 18- to 35-year-old male listeners, Stiefvater said. Most of the stations also have been having their own employees do 10- to 12-second announcements saying Dolan wants people to consider vocations.
The ads refer listeners to the vocations office telephone, (414) 747-6437, and to the archdiocesan Web site, www.archmil.org. About two dozen people have called so far, Stiefvater said. The ads also are intended to get people thinking about their lives and to give priests and parish staff something positive to talk about.
Stiefvater does not know of other dioceses doing the same.
Father Edward J. Burns, executive director of the Secretariat for Vocations and Priestly Formation at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, D.C., could not confirm what bishops in other dioceses are doing now.
Milwaukee and some other dioceses have had creative radio and billboard campaigns for vocations in recent years, but the campaign in 1998 did not feature former Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland's voice.
"He (Dolan) is a wonderful man to be speaking about vocations to the priesthood and has done so eloquently in the past through his written work, and of course, his life of service in priestly formation," Burns said.
Hope for all of us WHEN we get bishops like this!!!!!
Wow!
Exactly!
Wonderful message for young adults to ponder.
LOL! Don't ask me why the Admin Moderator didn't take it off as I asked!
patent
Now I pray that other Arch/dioceses may be so blessed.
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