Replies

Despite what the Church says, celibacy is the root of the problem. I graduated from a Catholic high school 20 years ago and out of a class of 800+ students, we only had 3 students going into "the vocations", 2 men, 1 woman. A lot of guys in my class said almost the exact same thing to me, that they would like to become priests, but they wanted to have families someday, so they weren't considering it as an option.
If you can't even get 1% of students you've had 12 years to indoctrinate into the faith to see it as a viable lifestyle, something has to change or the Church will continue to decline. I'm saying this to counter some of the statements that hetero men are being vetted out by the seminaries when in fact Church policy is vetting them before they even get that far. All of the abusers were not gay either, so throwing out all the gay priests won't solve the problem either, who will replace them for one thing? Both celibacy and marriage should be options left open to the clergy, and the pool of volunteers would increase about 80%.

If you can't even get 1% of students you've had 12 years to indoctrinate into the faith to see it as a viable lifestyle, something has to change or the Church will continue to decline.

Maybe they weren't really teaching the Catholic Faith.

The FSSP seminary in Nebraska is full. The Nashville Dominican sisters are turning away potential novices: no room left in the convent. Dioceses with vigorous orthodox bishops, like Fargo, ND, have plenty of vocations to the priesthood. Mother Angelica's convent is full.

The Nashville Dominicans say that girls who call them ask two questions: "Are you primarily a teaching or nursing order?" and "Do you wear a habit?" (Answers: "teaching" and "yes") They look and act like sisters, not like grouchy, man-hating, church-hating refugees from the local NAG chapter.

The vocations are out there, but they are vocations to the Catholic priesthood & religious life, not to the AmChurch priesthood of feminist ideology, heresy, and banal liturgy.