Archdiocese of St. Louis/550,000 Catholics - 4 newly ordained priests
Diocese of Raleigh/207,000 Catholics - 2 newly ordained priests
Diocese of Knoxville/50,000 Catholics - 3 newly ordained priests
Sounds like they're doing something right in Knoxville. Don't worry though, the Diocese of Raleigh will be coming on strong in a few years. God willing we'll have at least 21 seminarians in the fall!
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2 comments:
Ah LA....
5 men this year...
Last year I wrote this...
The Diocese of Arlington is about to have more priests than rectories to put them in. What to do? They do have a "Vocations crunch" too... They have 60 parishes... "Of those 60 parishes, only 42 are now staffed by diocesan priests. "We'll ordain 22 men in the next 14 months," Father Gould the vocations director points out. "The real problem will be finding 22 beds for them.
The Archdiocese of Newark recently did ordain 17 men to the priesthood.
So did the Archdiocese of Denver...
Do you know what else Denver, Newark & Arlington have in common? For all their vocations, none of them can be found on the list of the top-12 diocese with the highest seminarian to Catholic ratio which includes:
1) Lincoln, Nebraska
2) Yakima, Washington
3) Savannah, Georgia (website has great ordination pics from 2007!)
4) Cheyenne, Wyoming
5) Rapid City, South Dakota
6) Wichita, Kansas
7) Tulsa, Oklahoma
8) Alexandria, Louisiana
9) Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida
10) Steubenville, Ohio
11) Spokane, Washington
12) Bismarck, North Dakota.
IF LA is having problems with vocations, maybe they could call up the Bishop or Arlington and ask if he couldn't spare one of his "extra priests" to come to LA to serve as a vocations director?
The vocations ARE there. It is not some cruel divine joke that the Apostles were sent forth with the Great Commission only for there sons, the bishops of today, to find themselves in a sea of 4M+ souls with no one coming forth to serve.
Ask and you shall receive. If they start asking, the seminary will be full tomorrow and they will be ordaining deacons and priests enough to have a parade, or, dare I hope, a procession?
Go out and ask for them. They are there. The vocations are there.
Thank you for posting! I'm going to take a look at some of the Diocese you mentioned.
And yes you are right, if you ask, men will come forward. The vocations are there, God is still providing them, but many choose not to ask them or encourage them.
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