In a recent speech to Italy's bishops, Francis offered a simple sound bite: "How many seminaries, churches, monasteries and convents will be closed in the next few years? God only knows."
Europe is "hemorrhaging" priests and nuns, he added, because of a "crisis in vocations" in which few Catholics are willing to take vows and serve the church.
Once, Europe was the heart of Christendom and sent waves of missionaries around the world. Now Europe is suffering from "vocational sterility," in part because of a "dictatorship of money" that is seducing the young, the Pope said.
With all due respect, Your Holiness, the part of the “vocational sterility” to which you refer, the “dictatorship of money” is really just a small, perhaps the smallest part of the crisis in vocations to which you refer, isn't it?
Perhaps coming from the poverty of South America and the huge gaps that exist between the rich and the poor is the filter through which Your Holiness views most, if not all, the problems of modern society as well as those within the Church itself.
But, the very large and very real part of the crisis is staring you right in the face, Your Holiness, You only have to have the honesty and courage to recognize it and give voice to its reality.
Isn't it really the moral irrelevancy of the Church resulting primarily from the scandal not just of the abuse of minors but the corruption at the highest levels of Church hierarchy that protected and enabled such detestable behavior for decades, perhaps even for centuries?
The Priesthood and Religious Life have been critically wounded by the horrific tales of suffering on the part of so many direct victims of abuse but also by those who sought to bring the perpetrators to justice, victims themselves of derision and scorn by Bishops and their minions.
But one cannot ignore the affect which confusion and dissent among the Bishops, sometimes coming in the form of highly derogatory and inflammatory remarks Bishops have been making about one another.
When Bishops cannot unite in fraternal charity and cooperate with each other, what are the faithful to think?
Wide divergency in theological speculations, a Catholic morality that verges upon relativism, pastoral solutions which challenge traditional Catholic doctrine and practice, all these are part of the crisis in vocation the Church is suffering, aren't they?
To simply emphasize secular values and the “dictatorship of money” suggesting that is the largest part of the collapse in vocations is, well, disingenuous at best, isn't it?
Frankly, I wonder about those presently in seminary and Religious formation. In a Church so challenged, searching for relevancy in the lives of ordinary people, what does it mean to be a Priest or Religious these days?
Do they not see a Church on the brink of being reluctantly dragged into the realities of the Twenty-first Century, being confronted with calls for a real and honest discussion and decision regarding the return of the ancient custom of a married Priesthood, with challenges to a traditional male Priesthood, with the reality that fewer and fewer of the future generations of the Church actually practice their faith, what moves people to consider let alone engage in priestly or Religious formation?
The obvious answer the Church will offer, of course, is those in seminary and Religious formation have been inspired by the Providential Grace of the Holy Spirit constantly enlivening the Church from generation to generation.
I don't disagree.
But what is it about the spiritual and emotional makeup of seminarians and novices themselves that attracts them to a life of service to the Church?
The Church that inspired me to Priesthood is certainly in no way the Church of today. Almost everything about the Church in my youth was clear and ordered and consistent.
Nowadays, I am told that was because we Catholics, both the hierarchy and the faithful, were ignorant and immature in our knowledge and association with the “real world”.
I can only confess that the clarity and consistency of Church teaching and practice made sense to me and strengthened my vocational aspirations all along the way.
Perhaps, I am completely out of touch but I believe that the seminarian or novice of today must be being called to vocation for reasons completely different from my own.
I don’t understand them, but ask the Lord to bless them for sure.
And please bless Pope Francis and the Church, dear Lord. Paraphrasing the Pope himself, “Only You, dear God, know how much we need it!”
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