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[Catholic Caucus] Archbishop Aguer: Our vocations crisis must be addressed. Here is what I proposeCareful reflection and a variety of experience enable me at this point in my life to attempt a synthesis on priestly formation and propose ways to overcome our present vocations crisis. Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a multi-part series addressing the decline in the number of Catholic priests and seminarians worldwide.(LifeSiteNews) — On numerous occasions I have referred to a crucial issue for the Church: the formation of candidates for the priesthood. Today I take it up again, without pretending, of course, to exhaust...

[Catholic Caucus] Rector of Barcelona Seminary: "Too Many Conservative Seminarians"Seminarians today [if there are any] are "reactionary," Rev. Salvador Barcadit, Rector of the Seminary of Barcelona, Spain, told ElPuntaVui.cat (August 13).Rector Barcadit has noticed "a shift to the right" among seminarians: "The new generations, in times of crisis, seek security and these styles, these more fundamentalist and more conservative tendencies."He sees the shift to conservatism can also be found among young people outside of the Church.Barcadit's hope: "Pope Francis and also the bishops are concerned about this reality and want to try to redirect it."In his seminary, they want to...

[Catholic Caucus] Italy: Pope Francis Is Alarmed by the “Shortage of Vocations”During the General Audience of May 22, 2024, at the greeting the novices of the women’s congregations of Italy in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope expressed his concern about religious vocations. “I see these novices and I ask myself: how many are Italian? Few!” “There is a shortage of vocations in Italy,” Francis worried. And he urged the faithful: “Let us think and pray for vocations to the consecrated life.”In fact, in 2021, the data from a report of the Italian Bishops’ Conference revealed that in only 10 years,...

Does Francis's "Right-hand Man" Parra have a "Sexual Predation against Seminarians, Adultery, and even a Deadly Sex Game...[that] 'might even be a Scandal Surpassing that of McCarrick'"? Today, the Call Me Jorge website asked "What could be so important that Francis interrupted his weekly adulation [Audience] session?"Pope gets a phone call during the Audience. Haven’t seen this before. Then he quickly leaves and says he will be back. pic.twitter.com/npCuPzdnxP— The Catholic Traveler (@MountainButorac) August 11, 2021 It was Abp. Mons. Edgar Robinson Peña Parra, Substitute for the Secretariat of State, who was involved in the recent scandal of mismanagement...

Bishops Confidentially: Francis Has Not Inspired A Single Seminarian to Become a PriestCovid-19 did less financial damage than expected, Francis Maier found after conducting 33 private interviews with bishops since December. Revenues declined in 2020 by 4-8%.Maier spoke to 31 bishops from the US and 2 from other anglophone countries (FirstThings.com, February 22).The bishops expect a 25-40% permanent fall-off in Mass attendance, and have not noticed any uptick in people’s concern about the afterlife due to Covid-19.Maier found that worrying about the negative spirit and potential damage of the Biden regime was “unanimous.”All bishops expressed a "sincere fidelity" to Francis...

[Catholic Caucus] All Seminarians to Learn the Traditional Latin Mass US Archbishop Wants ALL His Seminarians to Learn the Traditional Latin Mass The Benedict XVI Institute published on August 10 an interesting online discussion with priests and laypeople who promote the Traditional Latin Mass in the United States. The most prominent guest was San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone US Archbishop Cordileone Defends Latin Archbishop Cordileone stressed that the Church abolished Latin and introduced the vernacular exactly at the wrong time. Now, more than ever, we need a universal language of the Church because of migration and tourism, he explained. Cordileone...

[Catholic Caucus] McCarrick breaks his silence: ‘I’m not as bad as they paint me’ VICTORIA, Kansas, September 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― Ted McCarrick has broken his year-long silence.  Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick has granted an interview to a reporter and denied the accusations that have been made against him.  Several men have complained that McCarrick made unwelcome sexual advances to them when they were seminarians, and there have been two “credible allegations” that McCarrick also sexually assaulted two minors, a 16-year-old altar server and an 11-year-old family friend named James Grein. Grein alleges that the cardinal abused him...

Former seminary priest speaks out on homosexual subculture and exposes the Irish McCarrickFollowing the dark revelations of the McCarrick scandal, former seminary formator, Father David Marsden, decided it was time to go public on the real reason he resigned from Maynooth and why he remains deeply concerned about the presence of a powerful gay subculture in the national seminary.Referendum a forbidden topic The year is 2015 and debate in Ireland is dominated by the State’s plan to change the constitution to allow pairs of the same sex to “marry” – with such a blatant assault on God’s plan for marriage...

Episcopal Sodomy: Gay Seminarian Pipeline by Church Militant  •  ChurchMilitant.com  •  August 21, 2018    From South America to the US Church Militant has learned that a clandestine pipeline for homosexual seminarians was established in the 1990s and into the early 2000s where active gay men from Colombia, South America were being secretly funneled to U.S. seminaries. Multiple seminarians have been in contact with us and want the entire story of the massive, massive crisis of homosexual predation by the clergy — especially in the seminaries — completely exposed. Church Militant has also confirmed with official sources that various U.S....

(CNA).- Recent allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick include reports that he made sexual advances toward seminarians during his tenure as Bishop of Metuchen and Archbishop of Newark. .... The religious priest who spoke to CNA said when he studied in a seminary in New York, McCarrick, who was then an aide to Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York, would sometimes visit the seminary. The priest said that McCarrick’s reputation was already well established by this time. .... So well-known was McCarrick’s reputation, the priest said, that when McCarrick would accompany Cooke to visit the seminary there was a standing...

PopeWatch: Obvious Posted on Monday, January 8, AD 2018 by Donald R. McClarey Phil Lawler, who has a book out about Pope Francis next month, has a telling anecdote that he relates at Catholic Culture:  How popular is Pope Francis? With the public? With bishops and priests? With young seminarians? Ask different people, and you’ll get different answers. It’s hard to gain an accurate reading.But here’s a remarkably revealing clue, nearly hidden in a feel-good story about an American seminarian, Nick Sentovich, who is a 3rd-year student at the North American College in Rome, “and like all third-year seminarians, he was...

It is a common notion that the number of priests has plummeted in this country. Many speak of the halcyon days when there were four and five priests per parish, and the seminaries were packed. And while some of these memories are accurate, they are drawn from a time in this country that was very brief.The fact is, the number of priests per parish spiked sharply after 1950 and has now leveled back to the levels of 1950 and before.Note the graph at the upper right from the Center for Research in the Apostolate (CARA). It depicts the number of...

In comments to Roman clergy yesterday Pope Francis referred to cases that “happen often” where bishops have accepted “traditionalist” seminarians who were rejected by other dioceses. Because “they presented themselves very well, very devout,” said the pope, the bishops failed to find out information about them, and they were later found to have “psychological and moral problems." Ordaining such seminarians, said the pontiff, is like placing a “mortgage on the Church.” The comments came in a meeting with Roman clergy that, in order to be allowed to flow freely, Pope Francis asked not to be televised. However, Rome’s Zenit News...

A video of a pair of dueling, dancing American priests studying in Rome has gone viral, following in the footsteps of a now-famous Italian nun whose Alicia Keyes-esque voice won her a singing contest and a record contract. The Rev. David Rider, 29, of Hyde Park, New York, and the Rev. John Gibson, 28, of Milwaukee, first shot to Internet fame when they were filmed in April during a fundraiser at the North American College, the elite American seminary up the hill from the Vatican. Rider warmed up the crowd with a lively tap-dance routine, only to be pushed aside...

One of the recommendations of Vatican II was that priests be formed in the arts: “During their philosophical and theological studies, clerics are to be taught about the history and development of sacred art, and about the sound principles governing the production of its works. In consequence they will be able to appreciate and preserve the Church’s venerable monuments, and be in a position to aid, by good advice, artists who are engaged in producing works of art” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 129). This is not a bad idea, considering that priests are the caretakers of the Church’s artistic patrimony. Each pastor...

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- In his first months as rector of Theological College in Washington, Father Phillip J. Brown has been confronting a problem that the national diocesan seminary for the U.S. Catholic Church "has not had for a long time" -- it is bursting at the seams. Enrollment is maxed out for the 2011-12 academic year at 90 seminarians. Five of those seminarians are back in their dioceses this year gaining pastoral experience, but a Sulpician seminarian and five priests from other countries also live there, bringing the total number of residents to 91 plus faculty members. "If I had...

Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Aug 28, 2011 / 01:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Benedict XVI has encouraged the new class of seminarians at the Pontifical North American College in Rome to be unafraid to carry the cross of Christ.“Dear Seminarians, do not be afraid to take up the challenge in today’s Gospel to give your lives completely to Christ,” he told the new students during his Sunday Angelus address on Aug. 28 at Castel Gandolfo, his summer residence 15 miles to the south of Rome.“Indeed, may all of us be generous in our commitment to him, carrying our cross with...

The long, dark night of the vocation shortage appears to be coming to an end... at least in some dioceses. Take Kansas City, for example. In 1994, it had one seminarian; the next year, none. But now...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- The world sees the public side of Pope Benedict XVI generally at big ceremonial events in Rome or on foreign travels, when he's under the glare of the media. But over the last three years, the "real Benedict" has emerged most fully in a series of semiprivate encounters with an audience he feels at home with -- groups of priests. In the northern Italian city of Bressanone in early August, the 81-year-old pope engaged in what has become a summer tradition: a question-and-answer session with the region's diocesan and religious priests. The dialogue ran the gamut...

In the background the 'steamer' Varagan is preparing to leave the Stronsay pier at 8.10am. This morning the seminarian Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, in calm seas and good standing, left Papa Stronsay to catch it. They are on their way to London to prepare their travel documents for the seminary. Br. Magdala Maria, F.SS.R., Br. Jean Marie, F.SS.R., Br. Yousef Marie, F.SS.R., Br. Martin Mary, F.SS.R., Br. Ivan Maria, F.SS.R. We are very happy to announce that at the end of August they will be received by the Society of Saint Peter's seminary [FSSP], in Denton, Nebraska. Prayer...