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That last post echos a recent talk that I heard from the President of a Seminary. While discussing "calling" he said that in the past, people were called specifically to a vocation--be that vocation to law, medicine, or ministry, the community itself would call a person to join it. He said we are really missing a sense of that today, and if anything, we feel the need to challenge the calls of men considering the priesthood.

Indeed, the model of the Bishop or priest calling young men to the priesthood is one that would be closer to the model of Christ, and would undoubtedly be much more compelling.

Perhaps what we are looking at is a question of call and demoralization. Without orthodoxy and moral example, one would really have to wonder what one was doing dedicating oneself to a life in service of the Church. In the face of corruption, one would have to ask if the Church was indeed serving the needs of the laity.

On a side note, my own diocese is in a large urban center. We have more seminarians than any time in the last 25 years, and there are rumors that we will be moving to waiting list for seminarians if the trend continues. On the whole, I suspect our diocese is moving toward increasing orthodoxy, and the more orthodox parishes seem to be turning out more vocations. Whether they attract devout young men or foster the call of local parishioners, I do not know.

In "Salt of the Earth," the then Cardinal Ratzinger talked about the mistaken perception that the priesthhod is a position of "power." The cliche that it is a ministry rather than power is no less true for being a cliche. Men like Loyola do not lust for power, are not proud prelates. IMHO, the liberal reformers are the ones who confuse spiritual and earthly powers. They would reduce the Church to a kind of polity, which is a thing of earth. They have not hestiated to impose their wills on the people they are suppose to serve, far more so than the most autocratic old priest of pre-Vatican II.