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For all you men who have a vocation to Holy Matrimony and Fatherhood.
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H/t to Joe Mack
Friday, January 16, 2009
"I Only Show You the Cross" St. Vincent Archabbey
The Benedictines at St. Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, PA are celebrating the 200th Birthday of their founder, Archabbot Boniface Wimmer, O.S.B. In honor of the occasion they have created a website which you can see HERE.
"Wanted: Hispanic families that promote vocations"
From “Entre Amigos,” a monthly column by Mar Muñoz-Visoso, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
By Mar Muñoz-Visoso, USCCB
"Some time ago a bishop met with Hispanic groups in his diocese. They presented many concerns, including one from a married couple who asked him, “Bishop, please send us priests who understand us and will take care of us.” With a smile the bishop replied, “Of course. Give me your sons and I will send them to the seminary to be trained. I don’t have sons. Vocations must come from you.”
The intelligent response was not a way to wash his hands — this man has gone to great lengths to make sure his Hispanic flock is cared for. Rather, it highlighted a key truth: If we want Hispanic priests and religious men and women, we Hispanic families have to generate them!
Praying for vocations is important, but so is being open to the possibility that the Lord will bring forth vocations from within our own family. Priests and sisters are a highly regarded and often beloved figure in Latin American culture. However, how many times have we prayed for vocations but have secretly thought: “but please, not my Johnny or my Doris. They have to be doctors or engineers and give me grandchildren!”
The truth is only 15 percent of seminarians nationwide are Hispanic. The number is even smaller for religious communities. It seems that an appreciation for this type of vocation has been lost in our families — who once saw this call as something desirable and positive for our children, as well necessary for the Church.
Last fall, Bishop Daniel Flores, auxiliary of Detroit, in his address to the National Association of Hispanic Priests spoke to the fact that family plays an essential role in generating vocations. “The encounter with Christ’s love comes to us by means of the family and the Church,” Bishop Flores said. He insisted that it doesn’t make much sense talking to a young person about vocation if he or she “has not entered, at least a little, into the logic of Jesus Christ.”
Experiencing this “logic” means knowing firsthand the beauty that comes from following the way of generosity, commitment and fidelity that should be part of the family experience. It is about making sure the young person grows up in a context where he can later understand the “language of Christian vocation.” Related to this is the role parents have in the religious development of their children. This is vital in the context of an immigrant family subject to the processes of “mestizaje” (the mixing of cultures) and cultural assimilation.
Bishop Flores says the religious crisis moment in immigrant families often happens during the first few years of their arrival. “If parents do not find ways to link themselves to the life of the Catholic Church in their new country, with time they adapt to a secular way of living, and establish family customs and a community orientation devoid of religious content.” Or they respond to constant invitations from other religious denominations.
Many other factors come into play in developing vocations. Bishop Flores does not bypass them in his excellent analysis that is worth reading.
As Catholic families, what can we do to help foster vocations? Perhaps, talking to our children about the important roles that priests and religious play in our communities — of how necessary they are for the Church’s own vitality, of the generous life of sacrifice most of them lead. Direct and frequent contact with them is also important if we are to offer them as models. Being open to a vocation discernment process on their part is also vital. And of course, praying often for vocations—and not only from the neighbor’s home.
Mar Muñoz-Visoso is the assistant director of media relations for United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This column, a monthly service, is intended to spark conversation within the community."
By Mar Muñoz-Visoso, USCCB
"Some time ago a bishop met with Hispanic groups in his diocese. They presented many concerns, including one from a married couple who asked him, “Bishop, please send us priests who understand us and will take care of us.” With a smile the bishop replied, “Of course. Give me your sons and I will send them to the seminary to be trained. I don’t have sons. Vocations must come from you.”
The intelligent response was not a way to wash his hands — this man has gone to great lengths to make sure his Hispanic flock is cared for. Rather, it highlighted a key truth: If we want Hispanic priests and religious men and women, we Hispanic families have to generate them!
Praying for vocations is important, but so is being open to the possibility that the Lord will bring forth vocations from within our own family. Priests and sisters are a highly regarded and often beloved figure in Latin American culture. However, how many times have we prayed for vocations but have secretly thought: “but please, not my Johnny or my Doris. They have to be doctors or engineers and give me grandchildren!”
The truth is only 15 percent of seminarians nationwide are Hispanic. The number is even smaller for religious communities. It seems that an appreciation for this type of vocation has been lost in our families — who once saw this call as something desirable and positive for our children, as well necessary for the Church.
Last fall, Bishop Daniel Flores, auxiliary of Detroit, in his address to the National Association of Hispanic Priests spoke to the fact that family plays an essential role in generating vocations. “The encounter with Christ’s love comes to us by means of the family and the Church,” Bishop Flores said. He insisted that it doesn’t make much sense talking to a young person about vocation if he or she “has not entered, at least a little, into the logic of Jesus Christ.”
Experiencing this “logic” means knowing firsthand the beauty that comes from following the way of generosity, commitment and fidelity that should be part of the family experience. It is about making sure the young person grows up in a context where he can later understand the “language of Christian vocation.” Related to this is the role parents have in the religious development of their children. This is vital in the context of an immigrant family subject to the processes of “mestizaje” (the mixing of cultures) and cultural assimilation.
Bishop Flores says the religious crisis moment in immigrant families often happens during the first few years of their arrival. “If parents do not find ways to link themselves to the life of the Catholic Church in their new country, with time they adapt to a secular way of living, and establish family customs and a community orientation devoid of religious content.” Or they respond to constant invitations from other religious denominations.
Many other factors come into play in developing vocations. Bishop Flores does not bypass them in his excellent analysis that is worth reading.
As Catholic families, what can we do to help foster vocations? Perhaps, talking to our children about the important roles that priests and religious play in our communities — of how necessary they are for the Church’s own vitality, of the generous life of sacrifice most of them lead. Direct and frequent contact with them is also important if we are to offer them as models. Being open to a vocation discernment process on their part is also vital. And of course, praying often for vocations—and not only from the neighbor’s home.
Mar Muñoz-Visoso is the assistant director of media relations for United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. This column, a monthly service, is intended to spark conversation within the community."
"Moms forms POPS to raise vocations awareness"
From Catholic Review (Archdiocese of Baltimore)
By Suzanne Molino Singleton
When they met for the first time on the steps of Holy Trinity, Glen Burnie, Maureen Parker and Nancy Little exchanged just a few sentences before discovering they harbored the same idea – to form a support/prayer group for parents of priests and seminarians.
The crux of their newfound friendship is in the formation of POPS – Parents of Priests and Seminarians. Both women have a son with a vocation.
As couples, the Parkers and the Littles had been asked to speak that morning at Holy Trinity Masses at the request of Father J. Bruce Jarboe, pastor, about their experiences of parenting a priest and a seminarian. Their message to the congregation was to encourage other parents to suggest the priesthood to their sons.
George Parker shared his memory of the phone call he received from his son, then a freshman at Virginia Tech, announcing he had decided to become a priest.
“My only concern was that I perceived the priesthood to be a lonely life,” said Mr. Parker in his speech about Father Adam Parker, ordained in 2000 and now the secretary for Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien. “That concern has been negated by the camaraderie, deep friendships and support Adam has from his fellow priests, lay friends and family.”
Mrs. Parker’s reaction to the call was “truly one of deep joy,” she said. As a girl, she was reminded to pray often for vocations, something she said she has done almost daily.
“Never once did it occur to me to ask for, or to think a child of ours would be called to serve God. I was awed,” she said.
The parishioners of Our Lady of the Fields, Millersville, raised three sons and two daughters; Father Parker, 36, is their youngest. His mother fondly remembered that before he became an altar server at age 10, he was “the noisiest and most disruptive of the children at Mass.”
Her basis for the POPS idea was that gathering parents would provide a powerful witness to others. Mrs. Parker, 69, serves as a Baltimore Basilica tour guide and is pleased the first gathering of POPS will take place at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a Feb. 22 Mass at 2 p.m., followed by a social gathering in the rectory.
“We encourage everyone to come and pray with us,” said Mrs. Parker, busy with Mrs. Little and the Vocation Office in compiling contact information to invite all parents of priests and seminarians to this and future gatherings.
“We have come across other parents interested in joining the crusade with us,” said Mrs. Little, mother of seminarian Christopher Little, 21, a senior at Providence College, R.I., and a resident of Our Lady of Providence Seminary.
The families are working with the archdiocesan director of vocations, Father Gerard Francik, who was enthusiastic about the group’s formation.
“We know that vocations come from families and are either encouraged or discouraged by parents, brothers and sisters,” said Father Francik. “So the formation of POPS is an excellent way to thank, encourage and support those parents who are directly involved in the priestly vocation of their son. It gives them an opportunity to get to know each other, to network, to share common fears, hopes or dreams.”
The main goal of POPS is to support the Vocation Office by praying for priests, seminarians, religious and deacons.
“They want to be part of the solution in prayer,” said Father Francik, who has been guiding the mothers through their plans.
Mrs. Little, 51, said having her son as a seminarian has been a blessing for her family.
The St. John, Westminster, parishioner said, “We’ve experienced the Holy Spirit. The thought doesn’t occur to us, ‘Oh, you’re not going to have grandchildren.’ When you have an open heart, God will give you the blessing – whatever gift he wants.”
By Suzanne Molino Singleton
When they met for the first time on the steps of Holy Trinity, Glen Burnie, Maureen Parker and Nancy Little exchanged just a few sentences before discovering they harbored the same idea – to form a support/prayer group for parents of priests and seminarians.
The crux of their newfound friendship is in the formation of POPS – Parents of Priests and Seminarians. Both women have a son with a vocation.
As couples, the Parkers and the Littles had been asked to speak that morning at Holy Trinity Masses at the request of Father J. Bruce Jarboe, pastor, about their experiences of parenting a priest and a seminarian. Their message to the congregation was to encourage other parents to suggest the priesthood to their sons.
George Parker shared his memory of the phone call he received from his son, then a freshman at Virginia Tech, announcing he had decided to become a priest.
“My only concern was that I perceived the priesthood to be a lonely life,” said Mr. Parker in his speech about Father Adam Parker, ordained in 2000 and now the secretary for Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien. “That concern has been negated by the camaraderie, deep friendships and support Adam has from his fellow priests, lay friends and family.”
Mrs. Parker’s reaction to the call was “truly one of deep joy,” she said. As a girl, she was reminded to pray often for vocations, something she said she has done almost daily.
“Never once did it occur to me to ask for, or to think a child of ours would be called to serve God. I was awed,” she said.
The parishioners of Our Lady of the Fields, Millersville, raised three sons and two daughters; Father Parker, 36, is their youngest. His mother fondly remembered that before he became an altar server at age 10, he was “the noisiest and most disruptive of the children at Mass.”
Her basis for the POPS idea was that gathering parents would provide a powerful witness to others. Mrs. Parker, 69, serves as a Baltimore Basilica tour guide and is pleased the first gathering of POPS will take place at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary with a Feb. 22 Mass at 2 p.m., followed by a social gathering in the rectory.
“We encourage everyone to come and pray with us,” said Mrs. Parker, busy with Mrs. Little and the Vocation Office in compiling contact information to invite all parents of priests and seminarians to this and future gatherings.
“We have come across other parents interested in joining the crusade with us,” said Mrs. Little, mother of seminarian Christopher Little, 21, a senior at Providence College, R.I., and a resident of Our Lady of Providence Seminary.
The families are working with the archdiocesan director of vocations, Father Gerard Francik, who was enthusiastic about the group’s formation.
“We know that vocations come from families and are either encouraged or discouraged by parents, brothers and sisters,” said Father Francik. “So the formation of POPS is an excellent way to thank, encourage and support those parents who are directly involved in the priestly vocation of their son. It gives them an opportunity to get to know each other, to network, to share common fears, hopes or dreams.”
The main goal of POPS is to support the Vocation Office by praying for priests, seminarians, religious and deacons.
“They want to be part of the solution in prayer,” said Father Francik, who has been guiding the mothers through their plans.
Mrs. Little, 51, said having her son as a seminarian has been a blessing for her family.
The St. John, Westminster, parishioner said, “We’ve experienced the Holy Spirit. The thought doesn’t occur to us, ‘Oh, you’re not going to have grandchildren.’ When you have an open heart, God will give you the blessing – whatever gift he wants.”
"Sister heeded God’s call"
From the Catholic Review (Archdiocese of Baltimore)By Nancy Menefee Jackson
Photo at left: Sister Annuntiata Cornelio, C.S.M.J., serves at Holy Rosary, Fells Point. (CR Staff/Owen Sweeney III)
Photo at left: Sister Annuntiata Cornelio, C.S.M.J., serves at Holy Rosary, Fells Point. (CR Staff/Owen Sweeney III)
He might not text with a cell phone, but God still calls young people to vocations.
Sister Annuntiata Cornelio, C.S.M.J., a 32-year-old member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus who wears a black habit and a ready smile, is proof.
Sister Annuntiata, who was born and raised in Canada and currently serves at Holy Rosary in Fells Point, first began to think about a vocation at 14.
“It was the fruit of prayer, and I have to give a lot of credit to the Blessed Mother,” she said.
Her parents were having marital difficulties, and they sent her and her brother to live with her aunt while they worked things out. Her aunt told the worried children, “There’s only one thing you can do – pray – pray the rosary.”
“I didn’t even remember how to pray the rosary,” Sister Annuntiata said, but she learned and prayed it daily.
“It’s not like it was magic or anything, but little by little it brought healing to my family,” she said.
In the back of her mind, she kept wondering what it would be like to be a nun. She laughs as she recalls that she even put T-shirts and towels over her head, pretending she was wearing a habit.
“I didn’t think it was a calling because I had no one to walk me through it,” she said.
But that changed at World Youth Day in Denver, when people spoke openly of vocations and she glimpsed a group of nuns in brown habits and sunglasses.
“I was so drawn to them,” she said.
Her family moved to British Columbia, where Poor Clare and Benedictine sisters were working, and she and her mom began attending daily Mass before school.
“There was a joy about them that wasn’t of this world,” she said, “and I really wanted that joy. They had something precious that the world couldn’t give.”
Her aunt gave her the “Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul,” reading that solidified her calling. “I just knew that was the congregation the Lord wanted me to join,” she said, but, not knowing what to do, she continued living the life of a high school senior.
That summer, two laywomen in Alberta started a community, modeled after St. Faustina, in a cabin. Her aunt was involved, so, under the guise of visiting her aunt, Sister Annuntiata spent the summer there to discern if she had a true calling.
“My parents had no idea I was discerning,” she said. “It was really a battle for me. Is it really God’s will, or am I making it up? By the end of those two months, I knew I had to be there.”
She broke the news – by phone – to her mother. To her surprise, her mother started crying with joy because she had been praying that if her daughter had a call, the Lord would show her the way.
“And I was so afraid to tell her,” Sister Annuntiata said. But it wasn’t so easy to talk to her father. He was the most upset she’d ever seen him, worried his daughter ultimately wouldn’t be happy.
Together, though, they drove her back to the cabin to begin life as a postulant. Meanwhile, the fledgling community had discovered the Polish order of the Congregation of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus, dedicated to worship and obtaining mercy by prayer. Despite the language barriers, the Canadians visited the order in Poland, and two Polish sisters traveled to the new community, which decided to join the Polish order.
Sister Annuntiata has been in Baltimore since August 2007, working at Holy Rosary, where Massgoers enjoy her mezzo-soprano contribution to the music ministry.
She likes the traditional habit her order demands, and people are drawn to it. “It’s amazing the stories that come out,” she said.
Her advice to anyone considering a vocation is to pray and find a good mentor, someone devoted to the church.
“If God is calling them, it could just start out with a little thought,” she said.
She urges parents to pray, too, but she understands their reluctance to pray for vocations if it means their son or daughter – and their dreams of grandchildren.
“Sometimes we pray for vocations, but not my child,” she says. Her old archbishop in Canada encouraged parents to pray for vocations but also to ask the Lord, “Lord if it’s your will, touch my son or my daughter.”
“My dad was unhappy,” she said, “but now that he sees me happy, he’s happy.”
Sister Annuntiata Cornelio, C.S.M.J., a 32-year-old member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus who wears a black habit and a ready smile, is proof.
Sister Annuntiata, who was born and raised in Canada and currently serves at Holy Rosary in Fells Point, first began to think about a vocation at 14.
“It was the fruit of prayer, and I have to give a lot of credit to the Blessed Mother,” she said.
Her parents were having marital difficulties, and they sent her and her brother to live with her aunt while they worked things out. Her aunt told the worried children, “There’s only one thing you can do – pray – pray the rosary.”
“I didn’t even remember how to pray the rosary,” Sister Annuntiata said, but she learned and prayed it daily.
“It’s not like it was magic or anything, but little by little it brought healing to my family,” she said.
In the back of her mind, she kept wondering what it would be like to be a nun. She laughs as she recalls that she even put T-shirts and towels over her head, pretending she was wearing a habit.
“I didn’t think it was a calling because I had no one to walk me through it,” she said.
But that changed at World Youth Day in Denver, when people spoke openly of vocations and she glimpsed a group of nuns in brown habits and sunglasses.
“I was so drawn to them,” she said.
Her family moved to British Columbia, where Poor Clare and Benedictine sisters were working, and she and her mom began attending daily Mass before school.
“There was a joy about them that wasn’t of this world,” she said, “and I really wanted that joy. They had something precious that the world couldn’t give.”
Her aunt gave her the “Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska: Divine Mercy in My Soul,” reading that solidified her calling. “I just knew that was the congregation the Lord wanted me to join,” she said, but, not knowing what to do, she continued living the life of a high school senior.
That summer, two laywomen in Alberta started a community, modeled after St. Faustina, in a cabin. Her aunt was involved, so, under the guise of visiting her aunt, Sister Annuntiata spent the summer there to discern if she had a true calling.
“My parents had no idea I was discerning,” she said. “It was really a battle for me. Is it really God’s will, or am I making it up? By the end of those two months, I knew I had to be there.”
She broke the news – by phone – to her mother. To her surprise, her mother started crying with joy because she had been praying that if her daughter had a call, the Lord would show her the way.
“And I was so afraid to tell her,” Sister Annuntiata said. But it wasn’t so easy to talk to her father. He was the most upset she’d ever seen him, worried his daughter ultimately wouldn’t be happy.
Together, though, they drove her back to the cabin to begin life as a postulant. Meanwhile, the fledgling community had discovered the Polish order of the Congregation of the Sisters of Merciful Jesus, dedicated to worship and obtaining mercy by prayer. Despite the language barriers, the Canadians visited the order in Poland, and two Polish sisters traveled to the new community, which decided to join the Polish order.
Sister Annuntiata has been in Baltimore since August 2007, working at Holy Rosary, where Massgoers enjoy her mezzo-soprano contribution to the music ministry.
She likes the traditional habit her order demands, and people are drawn to it. “It’s amazing the stories that come out,” she said.
Her advice to anyone considering a vocation is to pray and find a good mentor, someone devoted to the church.
“If God is calling them, it could just start out with a little thought,” she said.
She urges parents to pray, too, but she understands their reluctance to pray for vocations if it means their son or daughter – and their dreams of grandchildren.
“Sometimes we pray for vocations, but not my child,” she says. Her old archbishop in Canada encouraged parents to pray for vocations but also to ask the Lord, “Lord if it’s your will, touch my son or my daughter.”
“My dad was unhappy,” she said, “but now that he sees me happy, he’s happy.”
"Vatican finds U.S. seminaries in overall good health"
From Catholic News Agency
CNA).- The Vatican has just completed its report on the health of U.S. seminaries, which resulted from questions about the formation of priests brought on by the sexual abuse crisis. The report finds that most American seminaries are healthy and that seminarian morality has improved, particularly in regard to homosexual behavior.
The report from the Vatican’s Congregation of Catholic Institutions begins by explaining that the Apostolic Visits were intended to provide a snapshot of U.S. seminaries and religious houses of formation that focuses on the issue of ensuring the proper formation of priests.
The visits to the numerous seminaries and religious houses of formation took place between September 2005 and May 2006, with one institute being visited in July 2006. The delegations were headed by priests or bishops who were chosen through a joint USCCB and Vatican vetting process. The clergy were also joined by members of the laity who served as “resource persons.”
The apostolic visitation teams concluded that U.S. Catholic seminaries and houses of priestly formation are generally healthy but produced several recommendations on improving the discernment and education process.
"This visitation has demonstrated that, since the 1990s, a greater sense of stability now prevails in the U.S. seminaries," the report stated. "The appointment, over time, of rectors who are wise and faithful to the church has meant a gradual improvement, at least in the diocesan seminaries."
In fact, the seminary visitors found that rectors were already aware of the problems that are mentioned in the report and were working to resolve them.
The trouble spots highlighted by the report include: an “incomplete grasp” of the difference between the ordained priesthood and the priesthood of the laity; faculty who subvert the Church’s teachings; the need to screen seminary candidates for irregularities and impediments at the beginning of formation; a lack of supervision of seminarians by the rector and the bishop and a discouragement of traditional forms of piety.
One area sure to receive attention from media coverage is the area of seminarian’s moral behavior. The report sums up its findings on the matter by observing:
“The apostolic visit was obliged to point out the difficulties, in the area of morality, that some seminaries have suffered in the past decades. Usually, but not exclusively, this meant homosexual behavior. Nevertheless, in almost all the institutes where problems existed, at least in the diocesan seminaries, the appointment of better superiors (especially rectors) has ensured that such difficulties have been overcome. Of course, here and there some case or other of immorality -- again, usually homosexual behavior -- continues to show up. However, in the main, the superiors now deal with these issues promptly and appropriately."
The report, which was made public on Wednesday, is dated December 15 and is signed by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which deals with seminaries and religious houses of formation. According to Catholic News Service, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published it on their website to coincide with National Vocation Awareness Week, which began this past Monday.
Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, offered his reaction to the report in a letter to the U.S. bishops. "It is gratifying to read in the report that our seminaries are generally in a healthy condition that strongly promotes the formation of men for the sacred ministry in this country," he said.
"The general conclusions of the visitation are positive," Cardinal O'Malley noted. "I am sure that all bishops and religious superiors will take seriously the observations and recommendations of the congregation that will further strengthen our seminaries and houses of formation."
CNA).- The Vatican has just completed its report on the health of U.S. seminaries, which resulted from questions about the formation of priests brought on by the sexual abuse crisis. The report finds that most American seminaries are healthy and that seminarian morality has improved, particularly in regard to homosexual behavior.
The report from the Vatican’s Congregation of Catholic Institutions begins by explaining that the Apostolic Visits were intended to provide a snapshot of U.S. seminaries and religious houses of formation that focuses on the issue of ensuring the proper formation of priests.
The visits to the numerous seminaries and religious houses of formation took place between September 2005 and May 2006, with one institute being visited in July 2006. The delegations were headed by priests or bishops who were chosen through a joint USCCB and Vatican vetting process. The clergy were also joined by members of the laity who served as “resource persons.”
The apostolic visitation teams concluded that U.S. Catholic seminaries and houses of priestly formation are generally healthy but produced several recommendations on improving the discernment and education process.
"This visitation has demonstrated that, since the 1990s, a greater sense of stability now prevails in the U.S. seminaries," the report stated. "The appointment, over time, of rectors who are wise and faithful to the church has meant a gradual improvement, at least in the diocesan seminaries."
In fact, the seminary visitors found that rectors were already aware of the problems that are mentioned in the report and were working to resolve them.
The trouble spots highlighted by the report include: an “incomplete grasp” of the difference between the ordained priesthood and the priesthood of the laity; faculty who subvert the Church’s teachings; the need to screen seminary candidates for irregularities and impediments at the beginning of formation; a lack of supervision of seminarians by the rector and the bishop and a discouragement of traditional forms of piety.
One area sure to receive attention from media coverage is the area of seminarian’s moral behavior. The report sums up its findings on the matter by observing:
“The apostolic visit was obliged to point out the difficulties, in the area of morality, that some seminaries have suffered in the past decades. Usually, but not exclusively, this meant homosexual behavior. Nevertheless, in almost all the institutes where problems existed, at least in the diocesan seminaries, the appointment of better superiors (especially rectors) has ensured that such difficulties have been overcome. Of course, here and there some case or other of immorality -- again, usually homosexual behavior -- continues to show up. However, in the main, the superiors now deal with these issues promptly and appropriately."
The report, which was made public on Wednesday, is dated December 15 and is signed by Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which deals with seminaries and religious houses of formation. According to Catholic News Service, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops published it on their website to coincide with National Vocation Awareness Week, which began this past Monday.
Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, offered his reaction to the report in a letter to the U.S. bishops. "It is gratifying to read in the report that our seminaries are generally in a healthy condition that strongly promotes the formation of men for the sacred ministry in this country," he said.
"The general conclusions of the visitation are positive," Cardinal O'Malley noted. "I am sure that all bishops and religious superiors will take seriously the observations and recommendations of the congregation that will further strengthen our seminaries and houses of formation."
"Apostolic visitation deems US seminaries generally healthy, notes numerous problems"
From Catholic World News
Jan. 15, 2009 (CWNews.com) - A Vatican investigation into American seminarians, undertaken in a response to the sex-abuse scandal, has given the institutions a passing grade but taken note of many difficulties.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has quietly posted on its web site the final report of the apostolic visitation of seminaries in the United States. Dated December 15, the report, issued by the prefect and secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, offers a generally positive assessment of US seminaries but notes numerous problems.
The apostolic visitation stemmed from an extraordinary April 2002 meeting between Roman curial prefects and cardinals and other leaders of the American hierarchy. Issued at the height of the clerical abuse scandal, the meeting’s final communique called for “a new and serious Apostolic Visitation of seminaries and other institutes of formation must be made without delay, with particular emphasis on the need for fidelity to the Church’s teaching, especially in the area of morality, and the need for a deeper study of the criteria of suitability of candidates to the priesthood.”
The visitation’s final report observes that “an Apostolic Visitation is a blunt instrument but by no means an infallible one,” providing only a brief snapshot of life in US seminaries. Intended to assist US bishops and major superiors in fulfilling their responsibilities related to seminaries, the report chronicles developments from 2002 to 2005, when the visitations, coordinated by Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, began. Visitations were conducted in 2005 and 2006.
The report then issued conclusions in several areas.
While concluding that “in the great majority of diocesan seminaries, the doctrine on the priesthood is well taught,” the report nonetheless noted in some seminaries, students have an “insufficient grasp” of Catholic teaching and the distinction between the common priesthood of the faithful and the hierarchal priesthood is blurred. Some religious institutes speak primarily of “ministry” rather than the priesthood in a “mistaken attempt” not to offend opponents of Catholic teaching on women’s ordination.
While praising bishops and major superiors for being “interested in and supportive of” seminaries, the report urged each bishop to make the seminary “the object of his most intense and assiduous pastoral care.” Although the majority of seminary rectors are “good and holy men,” not all are leaders who are “comfortable making difficult decisions.“ Rectors need to spend more time at the seminary, while frequent personnel changes among seminary faculty need to end. Praising “most diocesan seminaries” for the unity of their faculty with the magisterium, the report nonetheless noted the presence of some faculty members who dissent from magisterial teaching; such dissenters are “out of kilter with the rest of the faculty and with the seminarians themselves.”
“Quite often,” the visitors found faculty who mocked magisterial teaching without “speaking openly against Church teaching.”
“More widespread dissent” exists in other places, “particularly in institutes run by religious,” and in these places, “there can be no possibility of a unity in direction.” Dissenting superiors and faculty members, the report observed diplomatically, need to be removed.
The report also observed that the formation of laity “really ought to take place elsewhere” than at a seminary, which exists for the formation of candidates to the priesthood. If lay formation must take place there, laity should not “routinely be admitted” to certain areas.
Praising the criteria of admission of seminary candidates, the report nonetheless found grave deficiencies in seminary formation before the four years of theology formation. “Almost nowhere” has a propadeutic year before the two years of philosophical formation been implemented. While most college seminaries-- in which students receive philosophical formation-- are “good,” seminarians, before the four years of theology formation, are at times not formed with adequate oversight and are even not looked upon fully as seminarians. The report urged bishops to take a greater role in the acceptance or rejection of priestly formation candidates and noted that in some institutes, “lack of vocations has caused a lowering of standards,” with “possible wretched consequences.”
The report took special note of moral problems, primarily associated with homosexual behavior, in some US seminaries. While the situation has improved because of “better superiors (especially rectors),” there are “still some places-- usually centers of formation for religious-- where “ambiguity vis-à-vis homosexuality persists," the document said. Commenting on the report, the Congregation for Catholic Education urges American Church leaders to pay special attention to the 2005 document from the same dicastery on criteria for admission to seminaries-- a document which states homosexual men are not appropriate candidates for priestly training. The report on the Apostolic Visitation does not take into account the public statements from several American seminary officials who, in response to the 2005 directive, announced that they would continue to accept candidates with homosexual inclinations.
The report also noted many seminaries’ “laxity of discipline” over students’ off-campus activities-- a problem avoided by Neocatechumenal Way seminaries. In some seminaries, “formation advisers” and psychologists delve into seminarians’ spiritual lives, while ascetic rules are lacking.
The heart of seminary formation, the report continued, is prayer. “In the diocesan seminaries, the liturgical norms are generally obeyed, but this is not always the case” in religious institutes. Despite this general fidelity, some of the report‘s strongest criticisms come in the area of spiritual formation. “Regrettably, very few seminaries fix periods of time for prayer,” and “some seminaries” need to do more to introduce students to classical Catholic spirituality. The report exhorted seminaries to celebrate Mass, Lauds, and Vespers every day, including on weekends. “A great many seminaries” need to introduce seminarians to the Rosary, novenas, litanies, and Stations of the Cross-- otherwise, the seminarians “will be unprepared for ministry in the Church, which greatly treasures these practices.” The report also noted faculty members who criticize the discipline of clerical celibacy.
While praising the intellectual formation seminaries offer in philosophy and theology-- with some seminaries being “truly remarkable”-- the report condemned the practice of sending students to community colleges for their philosophy classes. Criticizing widespread weaknesses in the study of Mariology, patristics, and Latin, the report noted that “even in the best seminaries,” some faculty members dissent from Catholic teaching on moral theology and the ordination of women. Dissent is widespread at some seminaries, “particularly in some schools of theology run by religious.”
Offering strong general praise for seminaries’ pastoral formation programs, the report noted that in some places, bishops ordain men against the advice of rectors, while in “a few places,” the evaluation process was suspect-- with the non-ordained, and even non-Catholics, voting whether candidates should be ordained. “Such practices are to cease.”
The report’s generally positive conclusion noted that seminary formation has gradually improved since the 1990s-- “at least in diocesan seminaries”-- because of the appointment of “wise and faithful” rectors. The bottom line, according to the Apostolic Visitation: “The diocesan seminaries are, in general, healthy.”
Jan. 15, 2009 (CWNews.com) - A Vatican investigation into American seminarians, undertaken in a response to the sex-abuse scandal, has given the institutions a passing grade but taken note of many difficulties.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has quietly posted on its web site the final report of the apostolic visitation of seminaries in the United States. Dated December 15, the report, issued by the prefect and secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, offers a generally positive assessment of US seminaries but notes numerous problems.
The apostolic visitation stemmed from an extraordinary April 2002 meeting between Roman curial prefects and cardinals and other leaders of the American hierarchy. Issued at the height of the clerical abuse scandal, the meeting’s final communique called for “a new and serious Apostolic Visitation of seminaries and other institutes of formation must be made without delay, with particular emphasis on the need for fidelity to the Church’s teaching, especially in the area of morality, and the need for a deeper study of the criteria of suitability of candidates to the priesthood.”
The visitation’s final report observes that “an Apostolic Visitation is a blunt instrument but by no means an infallible one,” providing only a brief snapshot of life in US seminaries. Intended to assist US bishops and major superiors in fulfilling their responsibilities related to seminaries, the report chronicles developments from 2002 to 2005, when the visitations, coordinated by Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, began. Visitations were conducted in 2005 and 2006.
The report then issued conclusions in several areas.
While concluding that “in the great majority of diocesan seminaries, the doctrine on the priesthood is well taught,” the report nonetheless noted in some seminaries, students have an “insufficient grasp” of Catholic teaching and the distinction between the common priesthood of the faithful and the hierarchal priesthood is blurred. Some religious institutes speak primarily of “ministry” rather than the priesthood in a “mistaken attempt” not to offend opponents of Catholic teaching on women’s ordination.
While praising bishops and major superiors for being “interested in and supportive of” seminaries, the report urged each bishop to make the seminary “the object of his most intense and assiduous pastoral care.” Although the majority of seminary rectors are “good and holy men,” not all are leaders who are “comfortable making difficult decisions.“ Rectors need to spend more time at the seminary, while frequent personnel changes among seminary faculty need to end. Praising “most diocesan seminaries” for the unity of their faculty with the magisterium, the report nonetheless noted the presence of some faculty members who dissent from magisterial teaching; such dissenters are “out of kilter with the rest of the faculty and with the seminarians themselves.”
“Quite often,” the visitors found faculty who mocked magisterial teaching without “speaking openly against Church teaching.”
“More widespread dissent” exists in other places, “particularly in institutes run by religious,” and in these places, “there can be no possibility of a unity in direction.” Dissenting superiors and faculty members, the report observed diplomatically, need to be removed.
The report also observed that the formation of laity “really ought to take place elsewhere” than at a seminary, which exists for the formation of candidates to the priesthood. If lay formation must take place there, laity should not “routinely be admitted” to certain areas.
Praising the criteria of admission of seminary candidates, the report nonetheless found grave deficiencies in seminary formation before the four years of theology formation. “Almost nowhere” has a propadeutic year before the two years of philosophical formation been implemented. While most college seminaries-- in which students receive philosophical formation-- are “good,” seminarians, before the four years of theology formation, are at times not formed with adequate oversight and are even not looked upon fully as seminarians. The report urged bishops to take a greater role in the acceptance or rejection of priestly formation candidates and noted that in some institutes, “lack of vocations has caused a lowering of standards,” with “possible wretched consequences.”
The report took special note of moral problems, primarily associated with homosexual behavior, in some US seminaries. While the situation has improved because of “better superiors (especially rectors),” there are “still some places-- usually centers of formation for religious-- where “ambiguity vis-à-vis homosexuality persists," the document said. Commenting on the report, the Congregation for Catholic Education urges American Church leaders to pay special attention to the 2005 document from the same dicastery on criteria for admission to seminaries-- a document which states homosexual men are not appropriate candidates for priestly training. The report on the Apostolic Visitation does not take into account the public statements from several American seminary officials who, in response to the 2005 directive, announced that they would continue to accept candidates with homosexual inclinations.
The report also noted many seminaries’ “laxity of discipline” over students’ off-campus activities-- a problem avoided by Neocatechumenal Way seminaries. In some seminaries, “formation advisers” and psychologists delve into seminarians’ spiritual lives, while ascetic rules are lacking.
The heart of seminary formation, the report continued, is prayer. “In the diocesan seminaries, the liturgical norms are generally obeyed, but this is not always the case” in religious institutes. Despite this general fidelity, some of the report‘s strongest criticisms come in the area of spiritual formation. “Regrettably, very few seminaries fix periods of time for prayer,” and “some seminaries” need to do more to introduce students to classical Catholic spirituality. The report exhorted seminaries to celebrate Mass, Lauds, and Vespers every day, including on weekends. “A great many seminaries” need to introduce seminarians to the Rosary, novenas, litanies, and Stations of the Cross-- otherwise, the seminarians “will be unprepared for ministry in the Church, which greatly treasures these practices.” The report also noted faculty members who criticize the discipline of clerical celibacy.
While praising the intellectual formation seminaries offer in philosophy and theology-- with some seminaries being “truly remarkable”-- the report condemned the practice of sending students to community colleges for their philosophy classes. Criticizing widespread weaknesses in the study of Mariology, patristics, and Latin, the report noted that “even in the best seminaries,” some faculty members dissent from Catholic teaching on moral theology and the ordination of women. Dissent is widespread at some seminaries, “particularly in some schools of theology run by religious.”
Offering strong general praise for seminaries’ pastoral formation programs, the report noted that in some places, bishops ordain men against the advice of rectors, while in “a few places,” the evaluation process was suspect-- with the non-ordained, and even non-Catholics, voting whether candidates should be ordained. “Such practices are to cease.”
The report’s generally positive conclusion noted that seminary formation has gradually improved since the 1990s-- “at least in diocesan seminaries”-- because of the appointment of “wise and faithful” rectors. The bottom line, according to the Apostolic Visitation: “The diocesan seminaries are, in general, healthy.”
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Final Documents of the Apostolic Visitations to United States Seminaries and Houses of Formation
I'm not sure when these were posted, but I just discovered them this morning. The first link below is the letter to US Bishops from Cardinal O'Malley, Chairman of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, about the final documents/report from the Congregation for Catholic Education on the 2005-2006 Apostolic Visitations to US Seminaries. The second link below is to the actual document posted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.If you are involved with vocations work, or if you are interested in the state of seminary formation in the United States, you really should take the time to read these documents.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
"A good red-blooded American boy"
From The Catholic Sentinel
By Ed Langlois
Photo by Kim Nguyen
Hundreds of weathered and pained faces appealed to him from the pews of Nuestra Señora del Perpetuo Socorro Church.
It was the year 2000, on a warm afternoon in the oceanside fishing town of Chimbote, Peru. David Jaspers, an American lay missionary fresh out of college, stood next to a white coffin. The agonizingly small box held the remains of an 8-year-old boy who had been run over by a truck.
The pastor was away, so the duties of leading the funeral fell to the outgoing 23-year-old from Eugene. He nervously got through the prayers and felt as if he’d plunged into the suffering of the people.
Now, six months before he will be ordained a priest, he remembers the warm grip of the grieving mother’s hand. It was then he learned what it means to serve.
Rev. Mr. Jaspers, 31, was ordained a deacon last year and has been preaching and teaching during the weekends at Christ the King Church in Milwaukie. In June, he will become a priest with a class of eight other men, one of the largest ordination classes in years for the Archdiocese of Portland.
The future priest grew up at St. Paul Church in Eugene, attending the parish school. He was a regular kid who wanted to be a professional football player, listened to hip-hop, and pocketed candy when others weren’t looking. Alongside that standard mix of experience, family members say, young David always sensed when someone was hurting and needed help.
His mother, who worked part time as a nurse, read bible stories to the Jaspers children. David was the fourth of five siblings. The youngsters also heard recorded stories about faith. Their father, a U.S. Forest Service employee, was a lector at Masses.
“I came to know Jesus as a kid,” Rev. Mr. Jaspers says. “As long as I can remember, I knew I was part of God’s family.”
He went on to Marist, where he got top grades and became a respected offensive lineman. Girls interested him mightily. He imagined some day becoming a school principal and having a family.
During a retreat, the leader asked youths if their religion was making a real difference in their lives, guiding relationships and choices. Young David resolved then to live in a way that integrated his faith; it simply seemed like the honest thing to do. He openly talked about his faith.
He worked at a Baptist summer camp, prompted by the urge to want to spread the love of God. About that time, he heard a tape from Catholic evangelist Scott Hahn. He thought to himself, “What a terrific job.”
At 6-foot-2 with broad-shoulders, he went on to Pacific Lutheran University, where he studied Spanish and history, ran track, played football and dated.
He took part in ecumenical bible study during college. That helped him both admire scripture and embrace his Catholic identity.
During his sophomore year, he studied in Granada, Spain. In that ancient crossroads of Muslim and Christian culture, he opened himself to the possibility of priesthood.
In what is now a culturally Catholic land, he walked the paths saints had trod and learned stories of faith rooted in the very soil. When he saw an open door at one of the hundreds of churches, he entered. A prompt soul, he showed up for Masses that, in the Spanish mode, started long after they were scheduled. Consequently, he had plenty of time to kneel alone in God’s presence.
In one of those quiet moments, he read a book that mentioned the Eucharist and his heart beat with joy. Always one to share his personal treasures, he quickly wrote to friends to describe his deep consolation.
He became linked with a group of young Catholic laymen who prayed and discussed great matters of belief and morals. He tutored youths on faith. At the same time, he entered the social life, staying out talking with groups into the wee hours. He felt magnificently free.
During a spring break trip to Rome, he saw Pope John Paul with 3,000 other young adults. On a bus ride during the pilgrimage, a priest asked the gregarious young American if he’d considered going to seminary. Well, yes, Jaspers said. But he also thought it would be nice to wake up each day with a wife, a lifelong companion. The older priest said that he, too, yearned for family life, but had chosen celibacy and would choose it again if he had it to do over.
Tears welled up in the young man’s eyes. It struck him: priests can be men who are like everyone else, men who like to play soccer or football, laugh over a pint and find women attractive.
“You don’t need to be abnormal to be a priest,” he says with a chuckle.
He decided to attend Mount Angel starting in 2002, just about the time the clergy abuse scandal became national news. The reports were painful to hear, but they did not deter him. In fact, they filled him with resolve. The church continues to need good, holy men, he told himself. Since his ordination as a deacon, Rev. Mr. Jaspers has felt unburdened in the matter of celibacy. He knew before that God had given him total freedom to choose married life, so with fascinating women he met, he had to ask himself, “Is she the one?” But now that he has made his choice, he no longer has to worry about what to choose. The result, he says, is joy.
“Real freedom is living out the commitment,” he explains.
He realizes he stands on the shoulders of priests he’s known over the years. He recalls meeting his father’s cousin — Maryknoll Father Mike McKiernan — who spent 50 years as a missionary in China, including a stint in a communist prison. When Rev. Mr. Jaspers was in high school, Father David Cullings set up a visit to Mount Angel Seminary for him, sensing a vocation.
Rev. Mr. Jaspers does realize his status as a young guitarist and football player-turned priest could serve to inspire some young men to be open to a religious vocation. He’s willing. “We need more cool priests,” he explains. “That way, we can let cool guys know it’s alright to be a priest.”
“David is a fine, fine candidate for the priesthood,” says Benedictine Father Odo Recker, a monk of Mount Angel Abbey, home to the seminary.
“He is what we called in the old days ‘a good red-blooded American boy.’”
"Last Orders" - Stella Artois ad
Great ad, but remember that it's not cool to blame the parish priest for drinking a dying man's Stella Artois. There's a special place for people that do such things.
"Letters get students thinking about vocations, bridge gap with seminarians"
From the Sioux City Catholic Globe
By Kara Koczur
It doesn’t take much to write an e-mail. Quickly type a few words, add a period, then click, it’s gone. Text messaging is much the same, perhaps easier. Just scramble a few letters and hit “send.”
But writing a letter takes time and deliberation. The right words must be thoughtfully chosen. One mistake, one false move with the pen could mean having to start fresh.
Yet when it comes to the diocese’s letter writing to seminarians program, held during Vocations Awareness Week for diocesan youth, Father Brad Pelzel, diocesan vocations director, isn’t concerned about perfectly dotted “i’s” or crossed “t’s.” In the second year of the program, which replaced the poster contest, he is more concerned that the letters get students thinking about what God may be calling them to.
“For the students, it was a new way of getting them to think about vocations and it personally connected and invested them with the vocation of whichever seminarian that they wrote to,” he said. “Between the newness of the approach and the personal contact, it really energized the classes that participated in the program and the benefits and excitement extended long after Vocations Awareness Week ended.”
Students become energized when a seminarian writes back, which happened last year for a religious education class at St. Joseph’s in Milford. The interaction with the seminarian was fun for the kids, said Karen Schwaller, director of religious education for the parish.
It also allowed the students to “rub elbows” with young men actively discerning their vocations.
“Having them write is a rare opportunity for them to make contact with someone considering the priesthood,” said Schwaller, who gave all her religious education classes the opportunity to participate, though some chose not to. “It’s a chance to get them thinking about ‘What if I want to do that someday?’”
While the program is only in its second year, Candi Streit, a teacher at St. Edmond Elementary School in Fort Dodge, is an expert at having her classes write to seminarians. She started back when Fathers William Vit and Anthony Vinson, OSB, were in seminary and has continued it for about eight years. Most recently her classes had “adopted” and written to Father Jeremy Wind until his ordination this past summer.
“Writing to the seminarians is something that makes the connection between the students and vocations a little more concrete,” said Streit, who teaches second grade. “There is someone that they ‘know’ who is studying for the priesthood.”
In the past, seminarians her classes wrote to have personally visited her classroom and thanked the students for their letters and prayers. She added that when Fathers Vit and Vinson were ordained, some of her students attended their first Masses in Fort Dodge.
“When the students have a special bond with a seminarian, we are helping each other out through our prayers especially,” Streit said, adding that all of St. Edmond Elementary writes letters during Vocation Awareness Week. “Through the exchange of letters and pictures, we establish a friendship based on faith.”
One of the seminarians Streit’s class wrote to last year was Aaron Pohlen of Hospers. Pohlen, a junior at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., said the letters he receives from Vocations Awareness Week piles up between three to four inches high. The letters are filled with questions ranging from what he does in college, if he likes it, what is he studying and how he heard God’s call.
“It is great for me to receive the letters, to hear from the kids in the diocese, to hear their words of encouragement,” he said. “I am in the Twin Cities, yet I have interaction with the people of the diocese. …It’s important for us to hear from people at home.”
Father Pelzel acknowledged that the benefits of the program are two-fold.
“For the students it establishes personal connections and extends excitement over religious vocations,” he said. “For our seminarians it helps them by reminding them in a tangible way of all the love and prayers our people are offering up on their behalf.”
The connections the letters create are important. In a diocese that’s so spread out, Pohlen noted, it can be difficult for students to have interaction with seminarians, or even know they exist, as was the case for some of Jenny Molmann’s students. The director of faith formation at Holy Cross School in Sioux City, Mohlmann is having half of her students in grades 6-8 write to seminarians.
“Some students in grades 6-8 were not aware of what a seminarian was and the preparation it takes to become a priest, or how many seminarians there were from our diocese,” she said.
Mohlmann encouraged her students to ask the seminarians questions in their letters, such as how they decided they were being called, what seminary they are attending, what a typical day is like and how old they were when they decided to go to seminary. Students also wrote information about themselves.
“I believe as Catholic students, it is good for them to show their support for our seminarians, take time to communicate with them, and pray for them,” she said, adding that Holy Cross also participated in the program last year.
While Mohlmann isn’t expecting individual letters back for all the students, she hopes that she’ll receive a general letter for the class, answering the students’ questions. In fact as a rule, Father Pelzel said seminarians answer their letters by addressing the class or school they receive the letters from.
As vocations director, Father Pelzel said he hears from people throughout the diocese who are praying for vocations, but for the men who all attend seminary out of state, while they know people are praying for them, it can be hard for them to grasp.
“The magnitude of what that means,” he said, “really hits home when they receive letters from so many people from all across our diocese.”
By Kara Koczur
It doesn’t take much to write an e-mail. Quickly type a few words, add a period, then click, it’s gone. Text messaging is much the same, perhaps easier. Just scramble a few letters and hit “send.”
But writing a letter takes time and deliberation. The right words must be thoughtfully chosen. One mistake, one false move with the pen could mean having to start fresh.
Yet when it comes to the diocese’s letter writing to seminarians program, held during Vocations Awareness Week for diocesan youth, Father Brad Pelzel, diocesan vocations director, isn’t concerned about perfectly dotted “i’s” or crossed “t’s.” In the second year of the program, which replaced the poster contest, he is more concerned that the letters get students thinking about what God may be calling them to.
“For the students, it was a new way of getting them to think about vocations and it personally connected and invested them with the vocation of whichever seminarian that they wrote to,” he said. “Between the newness of the approach and the personal contact, it really energized the classes that participated in the program and the benefits and excitement extended long after Vocations Awareness Week ended.”
Students become energized when a seminarian writes back, which happened last year for a religious education class at St. Joseph’s in Milford. The interaction with the seminarian was fun for the kids, said Karen Schwaller, director of religious education for the parish.
It also allowed the students to “rub elbows” with young men actively discerning their vocations.
“Having them write is a rare opportunity for them to make contact with someone considering the priesthood,” said Schwaller, who gave all her religious education classes the opportunity to participate, though some chose not to. “It’s a chance to get them thinking about ‘What if I want to do that someday?’”
While the program is only in its second year, Candi Streit, a teacher at St. Edmond Elementary School in Fort Dodge, is an expert at having her classes write to seminarians. She started back when Fathers William Vit and Anthony Vinson, OSB, were in seminary and has continued it for about eight years. Most recently her classes had “adopted” and written to Father Jeremy Wind until his ordination this past summer.
“Writing to the seminarians is something that makes the connection between the students and vocations a little more concrete,” said Streit, who teaches second grade. “There is someone that they ‘know’ who is studying for the priesthood.”
In the past, seminarians her classes wrote to have personally visited her classroom and thanked the students for their letters and prayers. She added that when Fathers Vit and Vinson were ordained, some of her students attended their first Masses in Fort Dodge.
“When the students have a special bond with a seminarian, we are helping each other out through our prayers especially,” Streit said, adding that all of St. Edmond Elementary writes letters during Vocation Awareness Week. “Through the exchange of letters and pictures, we establish a friendship based on faith.”
One of the seminarians Streit’s class wrote to last year was Aaron Pohlen of Hospers. Pohlen, a junior at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., said the letters he receives from Vocations Awareness Week piles up between three to four inches high. The letters are filled with questions ranging from what he does in college, if he likes it, what is he studying and how he heard God’s call.
“It is great for me to receive the letters, to hear from the kids in the diocese, to hear their words of encouragement,” he said. “I am in the Twin Cities, yet I have interaction with the people of the diocese. …It’s important for us to hear from people at home.”
Father Pelzel acknowledged that the benefits of the program are two-fold.
“For the students it establishes personal connections and extends excitement over religious vocations,” he said. “For our seminarians it helps them by reminding them in a tangible way of all the love and prayers our people are offering up on their behalf.”
The connections the letters create are important. In a diocese that’s so spread out, Pohlen noted, it can be difficult for students to have interaction with seminarians, or even know they exist, as was the case for some of Jenny Molmann’s students. The director of faith formation at Holy Cross School in Sioux City, Mohlmann is having half of her students in grades 6-8 write to seminarians.
“Some students in grades 6-8 were not aware of what a seminarian was and the preparation it takes to become a priest, or how many seminarians there were from our diocese,” she said.
Mohlmann encouraged her students to ask the seminarians questions in their letters, such as how they decided they were being called, what seminary they are attending, what a typical day is like and how old they were when they decided to go to seminary. Students also wrote information about themselves.
“I believe as Catholic students, it is good for them to show their support for our seminarians, take time to communicate with them, and pray for them,” she said, adding that Holy Cross also participated in the program last year.
While Mohlmann isn’t expecting individual letters back for all the students, she hopes that she’ll receive a general letter for the class, answering the students’ questions. In fact as a rule, Father Pelzel said seminarians answer their letters by addressing the class or school they receive the letters from.
As vocations director, Father Pelzel said he hears from people throughout the diocese who are praying for vocations, but for the men who all attend seminary out of state, while they know people are praying for them, it can be hard for them to grasp.
“The magnitude of what that means,” he said, “really hits home when they receive letters from so many people from all across our diocese.”
"Lawyer prepares to become priest"
His new career began with a search for a date
From Ventura County Star
By Alicia Doyle
Christopher Fagan was a successful lawyer seeking to settle down and raise a family when he was called to the priesthood.
“I had been practicing law for about 13 years, and I was very much enjoying what I was doing,” recalled Fagan, 56, a student living at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo who expects to be ordained in May.
While the Catholic faith was always important to him, his only involvement in the church was to go to Sunday Mass.
“I was also trying to meet someone with whom I could settle down and raise a family,” he said.
So he started going to his parish’s Sunday night meetings of its young adult group. But instead of meeting a potential partner, he got more involved in parish activities, including outreach programs for the homeless and social justice programs.
Fagan, who specialized in estate planning, probate and general corporate law after graduating from the University of San Francisco, worked with the parish’s outreach programs for five years. Then the pastor asked him to assume the chair of the liturgy committee, where he spent the next five years preparing and coordinating various Sunday and seasonal liturgies.
“One day, one of the older priests told me that he noticed I was at the parish a lot and he wondered if I might have a vocation,” Fagan said. “I told him that the thought had crossed my mind.”
Still, there was a part of him that fought the idea. “I really did not want to give up my job, my house, my lifestyle.”
And more people noticed his work at the church. “ People would come up to me and ask, ‘Do you think you might have a vocation?’ In fact, I began to think that the pastor was paying people to come up to me and ask me that question.”
He always answered that he had no intention of becoming a priest.
Age not an issue
At the pastor’s suggestion, he began regular spiritual direction, again, with no intent to change careers.
“But the more I prayed and volunteered at my parish, the more joy I felt in doing parish work, and I felt the need to explore why I experienced this joy, a joy that I did not feel in my regular job as an attorney.”
He entered the seminary in the fall semester of 2003.
Fagan is older than most men pursuing a life in the priesthood. But it is not unusual for a man to enter the seminary in his 30s or 40s after having had other careers, said Monsignor Craig Cox, rector and president of St. John’s, a multicultural community of seminarians pursuing advanced degrees leading to ordination and pastoral ministry.
“We have a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer who entered this year at age 50,” Cox said.
The current student body also includes a physician, a second attorney, a respiratory therapist, and people with careers in education and business.
“Their education and experience brings a richness to their studies and to their eventual ministry as priests,” Cox said.
For these men, it is not primarily a search for personal fulfillment that motivates them but rather a sense of being called, he added.
Path to the priesthood
Born in Whittier, Fagan is the youngest of five children. He attended St. Mary of the Assumption School, Whittier Union High School and Pomona College.
“At Pomona College, my undergraduate alma mater, I was fascinated by history, language and science and the different analytical methods and perspectives each has,” Fagan said. “I was also struggling with how to make a difference for the better in the world.”
In his senior year, he decided to go to law school because he could remain a “generalist” and apply the different analytical methods and perspectives he had learned at Pomona to any legal problem.
“As a generalist, I would never lose sight of the larger picture. I might be able to contribute to making the world a better place and I could actually make a living.”
After passing the bar in 1979, he worked at the Goldman and Kagon law firm in Los Angeles, helping people plan their futures and devise ways to care for their families after death.
“I helped them walk those journeys as a legal adviser and, sometimes, just as someone who would listen to them as they grieved and tried to cope with significant life changes,” he said.
When it comes to his priestly vocation, Fagan believes “we are dealing with the mystery of how the Holy Spirit works in a person’s life. I don’t know anyone who can fully answer the basic questions, ‘Why me, Lord? And why now, Lord?’”
Challenges ahead
After his ordination in May, one of his biggest challenges will be maintaining a balanced lifestyle in the midst of a busy parish setting.
Another challenge is living a celibate life as part of his total gift of self.
“My pastoral internship year provided an opportunity to deepen my understanding of what it means to live a celibate life,” he said.
Fagan emphasized that vocations are part of the mystery of how the Holy Spirit works in people’s lives.
“So do I believe that God chose me to be a priest? Absolutely, just as he chooses others to be married and still others to live in the world as single people,” he said.
“Why did it take 30 years and the pursuit of a different career to come to this realization? Because the priest that God wants me to be is the priest that has been formed by that life experience.”
From Ventura County Star
By Alicia Doyle
Christopher Fagan was a successful lawyer seeking to settle down and raise a family when he was called to the priesthood.
“I had been practicing law for about 13 years, and I was very much enjoying what I was doing,” recalled Fagan, 56, a student living at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo who expects to be ordained in May.
While the Catholic faith was always important to him, his only involvement in the church was to go to Sunday Mass.
“I was also trying to meet someone with whom I could settle down and raise a family,” he said.
So he started going to his parish’s Sunday night meetings of its young adult group. But instead of meeting a potential partner, he got more involved in parish activities, including outreach programs for the homeless and social justice programs.
Fagan, who specialized in estate planning, probate and general corporate law after graduating from the University of San Francisco, worked with the parish’s outreach programs for five years. Then the pastor asked him to assume the chair of the liturgy committee, where he spent the next five years preparing and coordinating various Sunday and seasonal liturgies.
“One day, one of the older priests told me that he noticed I was at the parish a lot and he wondered if I might have a vocation,” Fagan said. “I told him that the thought had crossed my mind.”
Still, there was a part of him that fought the idea. “I really did not want to give up my job, my house, my lifestyle.”
And more people noticed his work at the church. “ People would come up to me and ask, ‘Do you think you might have a vocation?’ In fact, I began to think that the pastor was paying people to come up to me and ask me that question.”
He always answered that he had no intention of becoming a priest.
Age not an issue
At the pastor’s suggestion, he began regular spiritual direction, again, with no intent to change careers.
“But the more I prayed and volunteered at my parish, the more joy I felt in doing parish work, and I felt the need to explore why I experienced this joy, a joy that I did not feel in my regular job as an attorney.”
He entered the seminary in the fall semester of 2003.
Fagan is older than most men pursuing a life in the priesthood. But it is not unusual for a man to enter the seminary in his 30s or 40s after having had other careers, said Monsignor Craig Cox, rector and president of St. John’s, a multicultural community of seminarians pursuing advanced degrees leading to ordination and pastoral ministry.
“We have a retired Los Angeles Police Department officer who entered this year at age 50,” Cox said.
The current student body also includes a physician, a second attorney, a respiratory therapist, and people with careers in education and business.
“Their education and experience brings a richness to their studies and to their eventual ministry as priests,” Cox said.
For these men, it is not primarily a search for personal fulfillment that motivates them but rather a sense of being called, he added.
Path to the priesthood
Born in Whittier, Fagan is the youngest of five children. He attended St. Mary of the Assumption School, Whittier Union High School and Pomona College.
“At Pomona College, my undergraduate alma mater, I was fascinated by history, language and science and the different analytical methods and perspectives each has,” Fagan said. “I was also struggling with how to make a difference for the better in the world.”
In his senior year, he decided to go to law school because he could remain a “generalist” and apply the different analytical methods and perspectives he had learned at Pomona to any legal problem.
“As a generalist, I would never lose sight of the larger picture. I might be able to contribute to making the world a better place and I could actually make a living.”
After passing the bar in 1979, he worked at the Goldman and Kagon law firm in Los Angeles, helping people plan their futures and devise ways to care for their families after death.
“I helped them walk those journeys as a legal adviser and, sometimes, just as someone who would listen to them as they grieved and tried to cope with significant life changes,” he said.
When it comes to his priestly vocation, Fagan believes “we are dealing with the mystery of how the Holy Spirit works in a person’s life. I don’t know anyone who can fully answer the basic questions, ‘Why me, Lord? And why now, Lord?’”
Challenges ahead
After his ordination in May, one of his biggest challenges will be maintaining a balanced lifestyle in the midst of a busy parish setting.
Another challenge is living a celibate life as part of his total gift of self.
“My pastoral internship year provided an opportunity to deepen my understanding of what it means to live a celibate life,” he said.
Fagan emphasized that vocations are part of the mystery of how the Holy Spirit works in people’s lives.
“So do I believe that God chose me to be a priest? Absolutely, just as he chooses others to be married and still others to live in the world as single people,” he said.
“Why did it take 30 years and the pursuit of a different career to come to this realization? Because the priest that God wants me to be is the priest that has been formed by that life experience.”
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Thou Art A Priest Forever
"Thou Art A Priest Forever"
To live in the midst of the world,
Without wishing its pleasures;
To be a member of each family,
Yet belonging to none;
To share all sufferings;
To penetrate all secrets;
To heal all wounds;
To go from men to God
And offer Him their Prayers;
To return from God to men
To bring pardon and hope;
To have a heart of fire for charity
And a heart of bronze for chastity;
To teach and to pardon,
Console and bless always--
What a glorious life!
And it is yours,
O Priest of Jesus Christ!
Author unknown
from an old prayer card
To live in the midst of the world,
Without wishing its pleasures;
To be a member of each family,
Yet belonging to none;
To share all sufferings;
To penetrate all secrets;
To heal all wounds;
To go from men to God
And offer Him their Prayers;
To return from God to men
To bring pardon and hope;
To have a heart of fire for charity
And a heart of bronze for chastity;
To teach and to pardon,
Console and bless always--
What a glorious life!
And it is yours,
O Priest of Jesus Christ!
Author unknown
from an old prayer card
Source EWTN
The Beautiful Hands of a Priest
"The Beautiful Hands of a Priest"
by
by
Anonymous Author
We need them in life's early morning,
We need them again at its close;
We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
We seek them when tasting life's woes.
At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness;
Their dignity stands all alone;
And when we are tempted and wander,
To pathways of shame and of sin,
It's the hand of a priest that will absolve us--
Not once, but again and again.
And when we are taking life's partner,
Other hands may prepare us a feast,
But the hand that will bless and unite us--
Is the beautiful hand of a priest.
God bless them and keep them all holy,
For the Host which their fingers caress;
When can a poor sinner do better,
Than to ask Him to guide thee and bless?
When the hour of death comes upon us,
May our courage and strength be increased,
By seeing raised over us in blessing--
The beautiful hands of a priest.
This came off of an old prayer card, anonymous author.
Source: EWTN
We need them again at its close;
We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,
We seek them when tasting life's woes.
At the altar each day we behold them,
And the hands of a king on his throne
Are not equal to them in their greatness;
Their dignity stands all alone;
And when we are tempted and wander,
To pathways of shame and of sin,
It's the hand of a priest that will absolve us--
Not once, but again and again.
And when we are taking life's partner,
Other hands may prepare us a feast,
But the hand that will bless and unite us--
Is the beautiful hand of a priest.
God bless them and keep them all holy,
For the Host which their fingers caress;
When can a poor sinner do better,
Than to ask Him to guide thee and bless?
When the hour of death comes upon us,
May our courage and strength be increased,
By seeing raised over us in blessing--
The beautiful hands of a priest.
This came off of an old prayer card, anonymous author.
Source: EWTN
"The Most Heroic Thing I Have Ever Witnessed"
From Mark Shea's blog "Catholic and Enjoying It"
Fr. Tom is one of the sweetest and holiest men I have ever known. A thoroughly priestly man with a profound sense of his vocation, a deep love for the poor, a beautiful humility and just a sheer radiant goodness that shines out of him.
He is also dying. We've been praying for him for months, but God has made it clear that he picks the fruit when it is ripe. So Fr. Tom ended his chemo-therapy some weeks back, went to Spokane to say goodbye to his loved ones, and returned to us at Blessed Sacrament to spend his last days surrounded by brother priests in the rectory, cared for by Jesson Mata, our valiant liturgy guy--and to say goodbye to all of us.
Fr. Daniel had to give a brief report on finance junk, but then he gave (as he had done at all the previous Masses) a report on Fr. Tom. He was as astonished and moved as the rest of us to see Fr. Tom there, so much so that his normally dry and imperturbable Norwegian demeanor was shaken, as were we all. His voice trembled a couple of times and he said the beautiful truth about Fr. Tom: that he was one of the finest and most beloved priest Blessed Sacrament has ever had (which is saying a lot, because we've been blessed with extraordinary men, some of whom I believe will be canonized someday). Fr. Tom, with typical humility, cried as the people spontaneously applauded him. Well done, thou good and faithful!
But that was not all. This supremely loving man who could barely sit up through the Mass actually stood and assisted at the consecration. You could barely hear his voice, a thin, papery whisper that demanded everything of him (the cancer has metastasized to his lungs). But he did it, gripping a chair to keep his balance and then leaning on the altar itself. "Through him, with him, in him". I've never seen the meaning of the priesthood so clearly incarnated before my eyes before. Alter Christus. Priest. Victim. Sacrifice. This man and his Lord were standing so close together it was hard to tell them apart, especially from my seat up in the Nosebleed Section of the Human Race, so very far from that kind of sanctity.
They made it through the consecration and Jesson hurried to Fr. Tom's side to help him. I thought to myself, "For the love of God, go sit down, Fr. Tom. You've done enough."
But instead, this great man insisted on coming down with the Body of his Lord and distributing communion to us. He gave every last bit of himself out of love for God and for us. I was very tempted to change communion lines and receive from him (and I know others who actually did) because I knew I was looking at a saint. But instead, I just went up in my line, bawling, grieving, moved and grateful beyond words for what I was witnessing.
After it was all over, Fr. Tom processed out and even stood on the steps of the Church in the cold, greeting people, blessing them, giving (as much as any soldier at Gettyburg or Normandy) "the last full measure of devotion". I had the great honor shaking his hand, thanking him (and telling him he should really go lie down and rest). He said, "This give me energy." Later, I'm told, he asked the Dominicans to take him for a car ride around town. They marveled--and complied.
My eyes blur with tears as I write this. Jan said afterwards that she thought of Henry V's speech, "We few, we happy few." I felt so privileged and honored to be able to witness what I saw yesterday. A friend of mine said, "I have been to Mass at the Garden of Gethsemane. I have prayed at the tomb of Christ and seen Holy Week in Jerusalem. But I have never been as moved by a Mass as I was today."
Father, thanks be to God for your holy servant, Tom. We know he has to go soon, but we also know he will be happy with you.
God bless you, Fr. Tom, for your beautiful gift of your heart. We love you."
Mark Shea wrote the post below on his blog. Read it. You'll be glad you did.
"The Most Heroic Thing I Have Ever Witnessed"
Fr. Tom is one of the sweetest and holiest men I have ever known. A thoroughly priestly man with a profound sense of his vocation, a deep love for the poor, a beautiful humility and just a sheer radiant goodness that shines out of him.
He is also dying. We've been praying for him for months, but God has made it clear that he picks the fruit when it is ripe. So Fr. Tom ended his chemo-therapy some weeks back, went to Spokane to say goodbye to his loved ones, and returned to us at Blessed Sacrament to spend his last days surrounded by brother priests in the rectory, cared for by Jesson Mata, our valiant liturgy guy--and to say goodbye to all of us.
Fr. Daniel had to give a brief report on finance junk, but then he gave (as he had done at all the previous Masses) a report on Fr. Tom. He was as astonished and moved as the rest of us to see Fr. Tom there, so much so that his normally dry and imperturbable Norwegian demeanor was shaken, as were we all. His voice trembled a couple of times and he said the beautiful truth about Fr. Tom: that he was one of the finest and most beloved priest Blessed Sacrament has ever had (which is saying a lot, because we've been blessed with extraordinary men, some of whom I believe will be canonized someday). Fr. Tom, with typical humility, cried as the people spontaneously applauded him. Well done, thou good and faithful!
But that was not all. This supremely loving man who could barely sit up through the Mass actually stood and assisted at the consecration. You could barely hear his voice, a thin, papery whisper that demanded everything of him (the cancer has metastasized to his lungs). But he did it, gripping a chair to keep his balance and then leaning on the altar itself. "Through him, with him, in him". I've never seen the meaning of the priesthood so clearly incarnated before my eyes before. Alter Christus. Priest. Victim. Sacrifice. This man and his Lord were standing so close together it was hard to tell them apart, especially from my seat up in the Nosebleed Section of the Human Race, so very far from that kind of sanctity.
They made it through the consecration and Jesson hurried to Fr. Tom's side to help him. I thought to myself, "For the love of God, go sit down, Fr. Tom. You've done enough."
But instead, this great man insisted on coming down with the Body of his Lord and distributing communion to us. He gave every last bit of himself out of love for God and for us. I was very tempted to change communion lines and receive from him (and I know others who actually did) because I knew I was looking at a saint. But instead, I just went up in my line, bawling, grieving, moved and grateful beyond words for what I was witnessing.
After it was all over, Fr. Tom processed out and even stood on the steps of the Church in the cold, greeting people, blessing them, giving (as much as any soldier at Gettyburg or Normandy) "the last full measure of devotion". I had the great honor shaking his hand, thanking him (and telling him he should really go lie down and rest). He said, "This give me energy." Later, I'm told, he asked the Dominicans to take him for a car ride around town. They marveled--and complied.
My eyes blur with tears as I write this. Jan said afterwards that she thought of Henry V's speech, "We few, we happy few." I felt so privileged and honored to be able to witness what I saw yesterday. A friend of mine said, "I have been to Mass at the Garden of Gethsemane. I have prayed at the tomb of Christ and seen Holy Week in Jerusalem. But I have never been as moved by a Mass as I was today."
Father, thanks be to God for your holy servant, Tom. We know he has to go soon, but we also know he will be happy with you.
God bless you, Fr. Tom, for your beautiful gift of your heart. We love you."
"Deaf seminarian prepares for May 23 ordination"
From The PilotBy Neil W. McCabe
“You have five months and 26 days before your ordination,” a woman told Deacon Shawn P. Carey after Mass Dec. 28 at Newton’s Sacred Heart Church.
“I had no idea how many days it was until she told me. I wasn’t even thinking like that but it shows that they are anticipating it,” he said.
“They” are the deaf community of the Archdiocese of Boston, which is eagerly awaiting the ordination of the first member of their community as a priest of Boston.
Although he was ordained a transitional deacon with his classmates at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, Calif., he will be ordained with the other priests for Boston May 23 at the South End’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Deacon Carey said through the sign interpretation of Father Jeremy P. St. Martin, the archdiocese’s coordinator of Deaf Ministries.
Father St. Martin said St. Patrick’s Seminary has had other deaf seminarians and its faculty and facilities make it a very accessible and supportive institution.
Deacon Carey said his vocation was clear to him as a boy growing up in Westfield, but there were persistent challenges that he had to overcome. “The Church did not have great access.”
In fact, when it was time for him to prepare for his First Communion, he was unable to participate in the regular religious education classes at his home parish because they were not equipped to instruct a deaf child, he said.
His mother, Kathryn M. Carey, an assistant for the Deaf Apostolate, said the family traveled to Holyoke’s Blessed Sacrament Church, where Deacon Carey’s parents knew the pastor from their days as students at Springfield’s Cathedral High School.
Eventually, his parents found a tutor who, despite being a Protestant, helped prepare him for his First Communion.
While a student himself at Cathedral High School, Deacon Carey said he had an encounter that nearly squashed his vocation for good.
“I needed a note taker for my classes and I asked one of the priests to help me find one,” he said. “The priest told me: ‘That is your problem, not mine.’”
Carey said that response came as a brutal shock. He put aside his vocation and fixed his sights on becoming a lawyer.
“If that is what being a priest was about, I didn’t want to waste my time. As a lawyer, I could help other members of the deaf community and take care of myself,” he said.
It was not until he arrived at Providence College as a political science and business major that he said he found a fully embracing environment for the deaf. “They had great access, including captioning and interpreters. The barriers were really broken down there.”
Calling them the best four years of his life, Deacon Carey was very active in the college’s chapel community and a member of the Sixth Man Society for boosters of the college’s basketball team, the Friars.
At Providence College he met priests who cared about him and devoted their lives to academic excellence. “But, still it never crossed my mind to become a priest,” he said.
After graduation, he moved in with his parents, then living in Wrentham, and started work at Putnam Investments while he prepared to apply to law schools.
As members of Wrentham’s St. Mary Parish, the Careys attended the Sunday 4 p.m. Mass, at which Deaf Ministries arranged for a sign interpreter, he said.
Roberta M. Oles, the parish’s director of religious education, said the then-pastor, Father John G. Connolly, invited Father Michael B. Medas, who was then the director of Deaf Ministries, to celebrate the 4 p.m. Sunday Mass as part of the ministry’s outreach to members of the deaf community.
Father Medas, who now teaches at St. John’s Seminary, said he remembers meeting Deacon Carey after that first time. “He was so kind and gracious, and happy to be able to experience the Mass directly.”
Deacon Carey said, “For the first time, I was able to hear the Lord speaking directly to me through the priest, not through an interpreter.”
Father Medas said over time, Deacon Carey began attending the Mass for deaf Catholics celebrated in American Sign Language Mass every Sunday at 10:30 a.m. at Newton’s Sacred Heart Church. In addition to attending the Mass regularly, Deacon Carey was a lector at the services and became a pastoral assistant there.
Even before Deacon Carey joined them, members of the deaf community at Sacred Heart had a special devotion that began after a pastoral visit by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, he said. Every week a different family takes home a statue of St. Mary given to the community by the cardinal.
During the week the family prays for vocations from and for the deaf community, he said. “It was very interesting that as we were praying for Mary’s intercession for vocations that Shawn came to us. There were many members of the community who saw in him signs that he would be a priest.”
Father Medas said a great deal of the credit for Deacon Carey’s vocation coming to fruition goes to the mindset and encouragement of Cardinal O’Malley. “The cardinal has said ‘If God is calling someone, it is the responsibility of the Church to facilitate that discernment.’”
There will be more and more vocations from the deaf community, he said. Young people who are deaf have the same calling as young people who can hear. “Now, those who are deaf are responding to the possibility that they can answer that call.”
When deacons assist at a Mass, they are allowed, with the permission of the celebrant, to read and preach on the Gospel.
Since his ordination, Deacon Carey said this experience is even more powerful than the experiencing his first Mass in sign.
“Then, I was watching Father Medas sign, it was amazing, but it was still something I received as I was sitting there. Now, I am actively involved,” he said.
“Using my hands to express God’s message to the people is something I feel very deeply,” he said. “Now, I feel inspired, too, because I feel the Holy Spirit moving through me -- through my hands.”
More information about the Deaf Apostolate is available at the Web site www.deafcatholic.org.
"Called to serve"
From GoErie.com
By Dana Massing
The Rev. Edward Lohse said it’s too early to tell if America’s rough economy will mean an upswing in the number of Catholic priests and women religious. (This is the second or third time I've read this in an article. While it presented differently here, I don't like the idea that vocations to the Priesthood or Consecrated Life is something you do when you can't make a lot of money in the world.)
But he suspects it will.
“It’s got to cause people to look inside themselves somewhat,” he said.
Lohse, 47, chancellor and vocation director for the Catholic Diocese of Erie, believes it was the experiences of the Great Depression and World War II that led to the last explosion in the number of priests and nuns.
“It really made people look at the tough questions of life,” he said.
This week, the Catholic Church in the U.S. will encourage people, especially young people, to recognize where God is in their lives and perhaps answer his call. The Church is celebrating National Vocation Awareness Week through Saturday.
“This week reminds us that it is our responsibility to pray for vocations and to invite young people to consider a call to ordained ministry and consecrated life,” said the Rev. James Steffes, executive director of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Some parishes desperately need people to answer that call.
Other churches around the country are either sharing pastors or turning to foreign-born priests to fill posts.
Lohse said the Erie diocese, which has 225,000 Catholics, doesn’t seek out foreign-born priests or candidates for seminary. He also said there are no parishes in the 13-county diocese where a priest shows up only once a month.
“There is no place that goes without Sunday Eucharist,” he said.
Some of the area’s religious men do serve multiple churches or serve a church and fill another role.
Members of Erie’s Immaculate Conception Church, whose pastor also teaches at Gannon University, said a declining number of priests was one reason they were given for their upcoming merger with St. Mary Church. Officials also cited a drop in membership in both parishes.
Asked if there was a priest shortage in the Erie diocese, Lohse said, “There is a shortage insofar as we have fewer priests than we used to ... which causes us to think through much more concretely the distribution of priests. We are able to meet all of our needs by the prudent distribution of resources, namely priests, matched to the distribution of Catholics.
“What that means, however, is we really can’t afford to send a priest somewhere for 20 people. ... There’s a day when we could have afforded that.”
Lohse believes the boom of priests and women religious in the 1950s and 1960s was a historical anomaly coming out of the Great Depression and World War II. Then the pendulum swung back the other way, he said.
Sister Janet Goetz, 61, vocation minister for the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, said the ’50s and ’60s were unusual years when large numbers of women entered monasteries or convents.
“Before and since those years, the average number of women entering (a convent) was one or two a year,” she said.
The newest member of her community took final vows in 2007, Goetz said.
Sister Sheila Stevenson, 61, vocation minister for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas — New York, Pennsylvania, Pacific West Community, said she entered her religious community with 25 other women in 1965.
Numbers began going down after the Second Vatican Council, held in 1962-65, said Sister Linda Fusco, vocation director for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Fusco, 58, entered the local Sisters of St. Joseph 16 years ago and professed her final vows seven years ago. She’s the newest member of her community.
Before Vatican II, females could only serve in the church as women religious, she said.
The Rev. Michael Renninger, the Virginia priest behind an online vocation campaign, said that in years past, convents and seminaries were also places where Catholic girls and boys could get an education.
He also said that back in the 1950s, there was a lot of talk about becoming priests and nuns but that parents who heard so much of that have said little about it to their own children.
And those children now have opportunities apart from a committed religious life, with the laity able to do more in the church and more educational avenues open to Catholic students.
But Renninger believes not just the church is struggling.
He sees a decline in what he called “helping professions” — social work, nursing, education. He believes it’s “part of a bigger cultural thing,” a definition of success in which people place more focus on money and material things than aiding others.
Still, local vocation directors believe trends in religious vocations could change again.
Interest in vocations
“There are indications of a shift,” Goetz said. “More women are ... indicating interest in long-term commitments.”
Lohse said, “I think they are headed back toward an equilibrium that is probably more the historical norm. When we will arrive at that equilibrium, I don’t know.”
He said it’s not that young people aren’t interested in a vocation to religious life.
“I think it’s very difficult for a young person today to hear the call in such a way that he or she is really free to act upon it,” Lohse said. “The culture doesn’t encourage it. A lot of parents are opposed to it. And some of them, I think, just don’t know what to do with it.”
The priest said one of the purposes of a minor seminary like Erie’s St. Mark is to help men find answers. St. Mark currently has six seminarians. The Erie diocese has 10 other men attending major seminaries.
In the past 20 years, about half of the men from the Erie diocese who entered seminary have gone on to become priests, Lohse said.
“We are happy with that because we are accomplishing our purpose,” he said. “We are helping young men to answer the question, ‘Is this what I was meant to do?’”
Seeking in different ways
Fusco said she’s seen statistics showing a 65 percent increase in inquiries about vocations across the country in the past year.
These days, many of them arrive via e-mail.
Stevenson said the Mercy Sisters have a private Internet chat room where interested women can meet and talk with some of the sisters about religious life.
Lohse said the chief way his diocese keeps in touch with priest candidates is text messaging.
Renninger, 45, remembers having to write letters with stamps to get vocation information.
Now the Virginia priest from the Catholic Diocese of Richmond has organized Behind the Collar, a campaign providing a look at the priesthood via a Web site, Facebook and YouTube.
In their first three months, the Web site received 1,850 views and the Facebook and YouTube pages had more than 800 each, Renninger said.
He said his diocese of 225,000 Catholics hasn’t had a dramatic drop in priests, but is facing a moderate decline in the next 10 years.
For many of the men and women called to a religious life, aging doesn’t mean retiring.
Fusco said women in her community technically retire at age 70, but usually enter a new ministry, work part time or volunteer.
“Anyone who’s capable of doing something is doing it,” she said.
The ones who can’t because of health problems “pray for the rest of us” and for other people, Fusco said.
Adapting to the times
Sisters have opened orphanages, hospitals and schools. They’ve nursed, done social work and fought for social justice.
A fourth-grade teacher at Blessed Sacrament School, Fusco is one of the few local sisters still in the classroom. As different people have come forward to provide education, sisters have graduated to filling other roles in the community.
“We minister to the needs of the times,” Fusco said.
They also change to meet them.
In 2008, Erie Sisters of Mercy joined those from Buffalo, Rochester, Pittsburgh and the Philippines in the single large group known as the New York, Pennsylvania, Pacific West Community. They total about 500 sisters and more hands help lighten the load, officials said.
Stevenson said that coming together allowed the sisters to continue their mission of serving the poor, sick and uneducated while being more economical.
Promoting vocations
All the vocation directors said they try to get the word out about who they are and what they do.
Sisters plan open houses. At Fusco’s school, children pray for vocations and she talks about National Vocation Awareness Week.
The diocese has a discernment program to help college men discover whether they’ve been called to a priestly vocation.
Local priests and sisters are optimistic about the future.
“I certainly would hope that there would be women religious to continue the work in the church, to keep serving the needs of the people and that’s what it’s all about, to serve other people and God,” Fusco said.
By Dana Massing
The Rev. Edward Lohse said it’s too early to tell if America’s rough economy will mean an upswing in the number of Catholic priests and women religious. (This is the second or third time I've read this in an article. While it presented differently here, I don't like the idea that vocations to the Priesthood or Consecrated Life is something you do when you can't make a lot of money in the world.)
But he suspects it will.
“It’s got to cause people to look inside themselves somewhat,” he said.
Lohse, 47, chancellor and vocation director for the Catholic Diocese of Erie, believes it was the experiences of the Great Depression and World War II that led to the last explosion in the number of priests and nuns.
“It really made people look at the tough questions of life,” he said.
This week, the Catholic Church in the U.S. will encourage people, especially young people, to recognize where God is in their lives and perhaps answer his call. The Church is celebrating National Vocation Awareness Week through Saturday.
“This week reminds us that it is our responsibility to pray for vocations and to invite young people to consider a call to ordained ministry and consecrated life,” said the Rev. James Steffes, executive director of the Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Some parishes desperately need people to answer that call.
Other churches around the country are either sharing pastors or turning to foreign-born priests to fill posts.
Lohse said the Erie diocese, which has 225,000 Catholics, doesn’t seek out foreign-born priests or candidates for seminary. He also said there are no parishes in the 13-county diocese where a priest shows up only once a month.
“There is no place that goes without Sunday Eucharist,” he said.
Some of the area’s religious men do serve multiple churches or serve a church and fill another role.
Members of Erie’s Immaculate Conception Church, whose pastor also teaches at Gannon University, said a declining number of priests was one reason they were given for their upcoming merger with St. Mary Church. Officials also cited a drop in membership in both parishes.
Asked if there was a priest shortage in the Erie diocese, Lohse said, “There is a shortage insofar as we have fewer priests than we used to ... which causes us to think through much more concretely the distribution of priests. We are able to meet all of our needs by the prudent distribution of resources, namely priests, matched to the distribution of Catholics.
“What that means, however, is we really can’t afford to send a priest somewhere for 20 people. ... There’s a day when we could have afforded that.”
Lohse believes the boom of priests and women religious in the 1950s and 1960s was a historical anomaly coming out of the Great Depression and World War II. Then the pendulum swung back the other way, he said.
Sister Janet Goetz, 61, vocation minister for the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, said the ’50s and ’60s were unusual years when large numbers of women entered monasteries or convents.
“Before and since those years, the average number of women entering (a convent) was one or two a year,” she said.
The newest member of her community took final vows in 2007, Goetz said.
Sister Sheila Stevenson, 61, vocation minister for the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas — New York, Pennsylvania, Pacific West Community, said she entered her religious community with 25 other women in 1965.
Numbers began going down after the Second Vatican Council, held in 1962-65, said Sister Linda Fusco, vocation director for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Northwestern Pennsylvania.
Fusco, 58, entered the local Sisters of St. Joseph 16 years ago and professed her final vows seven years ago. She’s the newest member of her community.
Before Vatican II, females could only serve in the church as women religious, she said.
The Rev. Michael Renninger, the Virginia priest behind an online vocation campaign, said that in years past, convents and seminaries were also places where Catholic girls and boys could get an education.
He also said that back in the 1950s, there was a lot of talk about becoming priests and nuns but that parents who heard so much of that have said little about it to their own children.
And those children now have opportunities apart from a committed religious life, with the laity able to do more in the church and more educational avenues open to Catholic students.
But Renninger believes not just the church is struggling.
He sees a decline in what he called “helping professions” — social work, nursing, education. He believes it’s “part of a bigger cultural thing,” a definition of success in which people place more focus on money and material things than aiding others.
Still, local vocation directors believe trends in religious vocations could change again.
Interest in vocations
“There are indications of a shift,” Goetz said. “More women are ... indicating interest in long-term commitments.”
Lohse said, “I think they are headed back toward an equilibrium that is probably more the historical norm. When we will arrive at that equilibrium, I don’t know.”
He said it’s not that young people aren’t interested in a vocation to religious life.
“I think it’s very difficult for a young person today to hear the call in such a way that he or she is really free to act upon it,” Lohse said. “The culture doesn’t encourage it. A lot of parents are opposed to it. And some of them, I think, just don’t know what to do with it.”
The priest said one of the purposes of a minor seminary like Erie’s St. Mark is to help men find answers. St. Mark currently has six seminarians. The Erie diocese has 10 other men attending major seminaries.
In the past 20 years, about half of the men from the Erie diocese who entered seminary have gone on to become priests, Lohse said.
“We are happy with that because we are accomplishing our purpose,” he said. “We are helping young men to answer the question, ‘Is this what I was meant to do?’”
Seeking in different ways
Fusco said she’s seen statistics showing a 65 percent increase in inquiries about vocations across the country in the past year.
These days, many of them arrive via e-mail.
Stevenson said the Mercy Sisters have a private Internet chat room where interested women can meet and talk with some of the sisters about religious life.
Lohse said the chief way his diocese keeps in touch with priest candidates is text messaging.
Renninger, 45, remembers having to write letters with stamps to get vocation information.
Now the Virginia priest from the Catholic Diocese of Richmond has organized Behind the Collar, a campaign providing a look at the priesthood via a Web site, Facebook and YouTube.
In their first three months, the Web site received 1,850 views and the Facebook and YouTube pages had more than 800 each, Renninger said.
He said his diocese of 225,000 Catholics hasn’t had a dramatic drop in priests, but is facing a moderate decline in the next 10 years.
For many of the men and women called to a religious life, aging doesn’t mean retiring.
Fusco said women in her community technically retire at age 70, but usually enter a new ministry, work part time or volunteer.
“Anyone who’s capable of doing something is doing it,” she said.
The ones who can’t because of health problems “pray for the rest of us” and for other people, Fusco said.
Adapting to the times
Sisters have opened orphanages, hospitals and schools. They’ve nursed, done social work and fought for social justice.
A fourth-grade teacher at Blessed Sacrament School, Fusco is one of the few local sisters still in the classroom. As different people have come forward to provide education, sisters have graduated to filling other roles in the community.
“We minister to the needs of the times,” Fusco said.
They also change to meet them.
In 2008, Erie Sisters of Mercy joined those from Buffalo, Rochester, Pittsburgh and the Philippines in the single large group known as the New York, Pennsylvania, Pacific West Community. They total about 500 sisters and more hands help lighten the load, officials said.
Stevenson said that coming together allowed the sisters to continue their mission of serving the poor, sick and uneducated while being more economical.
Promoting vocations
All the vocation directors said they try to get the word out about who they are and what they do.
Sisters plan open houses. At Fusco’s school, children pray for vocations and she talks about National Vocation Awareness Week.
The diocese has a discernment program to help college men discover whether they’ve been called to a priestly vocation.
Local priests and sisters are optimistic about the future.
“I certainly would hope that there would be women religious to continue the work in the church, to keep serving the needs of the people and that’s what it’s all about, to serve other people and God,” Fusco said.
Monday, January 12, 2009
"Seminarian to relate vocational experiences in new CNA column"
From Catholic News Agency
CNA STAFF, Jan 12, 2009 / 05:08 pm (CNA).- CNA is opening 2009 with a new column titled, “Led Into the Truth,” written by fourth-year seminarian, Joshua Allen. His column will discuss his life as a seminarian in Rome and his journey toward truth and holiness.
Allen explains his purpose for writing by discussing the importance of a vocational call. “St. Augustine, the great Doctor of the Church, writes in his treatise de Beata Vita that to live the happy life is to ‘know precisely and perfectly Him through whom you are led into the truth, the nature of the truth you enjoy, and the bond that connects you’ (de Beata Vita, §35).”
“Each person in this life is called to a particular vocation, which encompasses his or her entire life,” Allen says. “This vocation, a call from God himself, finds its roots in the very fact that we are created: ‘For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them’ (Eph 2:10).”
Allen continues, “a vocation is the medium through which we are led into the truth, the truth that is precisely Christ Jesus. Each vocation is unique and unrepeatable; each has inestimable value for the building of the Kingdom of Christ. My column, which I have titled “Led Into the Truth,” is an attempt to relate the source and the process of my particular vocational call as it is manifested in my current situation. I am a seminarian studying for the Archdiocese of Atlanta in Rome, the heart of the Catholic Church. I hope to relate in this column some of my experiences as a seminarian living abroad, seeking holiness, and being formed into the heart of Christ.”
Allen is currently studying at the North American College in Rome and is in his second year of theology, having completed a pre-theology philosophy program at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, MD. Prior to entering seminary, Allen graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in finance and worked in private equity for several years.
“The column will cover at times the details of the seminary process as I encounter them, my experiences in places and events I am able to witness, and my experience of the Universal Church and her head, the Pope,” he explained. “I hope to reveal to those who read my column a great deal about the particular way the Lord is leading me into the truth and to encourage others to boldly follow the Him in their vocations.”
Allen’s column will be updated on the last Friday of each month and can be accessed here or by clicking the “Led Into the Truth” link in the gray box at the bottom of the page.
New Book in the "Roman Catholic Vocations Bookstore"
Philip Gerard Johnson recently posted a review, of sorts, of the book "A Priest Forever". Below is a link to the book. I have also added it to the "Roman Catholic Vocations Bookstore" in the sidebar. Below this link is Phil's post about the book. If you haven't had a chance to check out his blog, I highly recommend it - especially as it relates to the subject of this book.
From Philip Johnson:"Last week I finished reading a very touching book, which I highly recommend. It is entitled A Priest Forever: The Life of Fr. Eugene Hamilton by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, C.F.R. Many thanks to my priest friend who sent the book as a gift.
Much of the book is taken from Fr. Hamilton's personal journal (he began an autobiography before his death in 1997, which was later found on his computer). This book is the fulfillment of Fr. Groeschel's promise to Father Hamilton before his death: "Your sermon will be preached." This "sermon," in the form of Fr. Hamilton's testimony to the Faith and the priesthood, is remarkable.
While his story is not exactly like mine, there are many similarities, so I draw strength and inspiration from his words. Quite simply, he wanted to become a priest, and was not going to let cancer stand in the way. He fought cancer for many years and was able to complete three years of seminary studies. When it became apparent that he was about to die, Archbishop Edwin O'Brien ordained him a priest with special permission from Pope John Paul II. Three hours later, Fr. Hamilton died. The story is very touching, and it reveals the character of a young man who shows us what the Catholic priesthood really is - not a job or profession, but an eternal vocation.
The whole book is definitely worth reading, but I found a comment from Fr. Hamilton's spiritual director very touching:
"I always had the sense that [Fr. Hamilton] knew that this was God's plan. It is almost as if he knew something that we did not know, namely that in him God was disclosing a new dimension of priesthood - perhaps not really new, but new in the sense that we seldom talk of it. And this dimension was the dimension of the victim-sufferer, even the victim-priest.... So often we think of priesthood as our choice, our decision, our commitment. In [Fr. Hamilton], the Lord was drawing us back to His definition of priesthood, defined in the person of the Suffering Jesus. I think [Fr. Hamilton] knew that he was a player in a divine drama that transcended him, and that, in some way, was part of God's teaching us what the priesthood really is."
I recommend this book to everyone, but especially to those discerning a vocation to the priesthood."
"Faithful Catholic Colleges Produce High Rate of Vocations"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY
Catholic PRWire
January 11-17 Is National Vocation Awareness Week
MANASSAS, VA (JANUARY 12, 2009) - With appreciation for the important role that faithful Catholic colleges and universities play in fostering religious vocations, The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) joins with the nation’s bishops in celebrating National Vocation Awareness Week, January 11-17.
“Priests and other religious are the backbone of the Church,” said Patrick J. Reilly, founder and president of CNS. “We salute those Catholic colleges and universities that, by their sincere commitment to both faith and reason, have helped young men and women prepare for a lifetime of service to God.”
Several of the colleges profiled in CNS’s The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College have had notable success in promoting vocations, whether through formal programs, a robust campus ministry or by creating a faithful learning environment emphasizing the Catholic intellectual tradition.
One of the most successful venues for encouraging vocations is at Thomas Aquinas College, where 11 percent of students since the college’s founding in 1971 have entered religious life. In a 2007 Vatican publication, President Thomas E. Dillon attributed this success to Catholic faithfulness, the academic program, campus chaplains, the overall college community, the lay witness at the college and a supportive “like-minded” student body.
Similarly, Magdalen College, currently celebrating its 35th anniversary, has sent about 10 percent of its graduates on to religious life. Founded as a response to the teachings of Vatican II about the lay vocation and apostolate, the college graduates most of its students with a Vatican-approved catechetical diploma in addition to a liberal arts degree.
According to Magdalen President Jeffrey J. Karls, “Magdalen sees that the pursuit of wisdom is incomplete without the corresponding pursuit of holiness. This emphasis in the program, embodied in the lives of the college’s faculty and staff, encourages students to genuinely discern God’s will for them.”
“The common life, too, and the impact of the students in each other’s lives provides, as many religious superiors have mentioned, great preparation for the pursuit and fulfillment of the religious and priestly vocations,” he said.
Fifty-four men have gone into the priesthood and another 60 men and women have entered religious life from Christendom College, which opened in 1977. Tom McFadden, the director of admissions, said, “The fact that Catholicism informs everything on campus—from dorm life to academics, extracurricular events to dress code, liturgical life to athletics—students are able to always stay focused on the important things in life, like the Faith and what God is calling them to do with their lives.”
Christendom also has an annual discernment weekend, which Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde attended in 2008, and opportunities are provided at other times for students to discuss vocations with chaplains or to participate in the discernment effort through St. Philip Neri Oratory.
The Franciscan University of Steubenville and Ave Maria University sponsor pre-theologate programs for men considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. These programs give enriching spiritual, social and academic formation in a community setting while students are pursuing university degrees. There are 56 men in Franciscan University’s program this year, and about 30 at Ave Maria.
Ave Maria also has a unique Women’s Discernment Program designed to help young women discern vocations to the religious, married and consecrated life. Religious sisters of a new Vatican-approved apostolic movement, the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, run the residential program, which includes approximately 20 women.
Father Robert M. Garrity, director of campus ministry at Ave Maria, said, “Simply put, in Newman’s terms, there is a “Springtime” happening in the Church, in which many young people want to do God’s will. We pray for all of our young people, that they will be open to God’s call in their lives, whether the call is to priesthood or religious life, or to holy matrimony, or to the single life of service.”
Among other programs are a Center for Discernment for men and women, sponsored by the Salesian order, at DeSales University, and a relationship between the University of Dallas and the local Serra Club, a national organization dedicated to encouraging vocations to the priesthood.
Joseph A. Esposito, director of CNS’s Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education, said, “These are some examples of the great work being done on faithful Catholic campuses to provide a new generation of priests and other religious. These colleges take seriously their relationship with the Church and joyfully promote and evangelize the Catholic faith.”
“Hopefully, the vocations work being done by these colleges and others will inspire an even greater commitment among the nation’s Catholic colleges and universities,” he said.
National Vocation Awareness Week was first identified in 1976, and for the last 13 years has been appropriately tied to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which this year is January 11.
The Cardinal Newman Society is a nonprofit organization committed to renewing and strengthening Catholic higher education. It is the publisher of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College, which recommended 21 faithful colleges in its 2007 edition.
MEDIA ADVISORY
Catholic PRWire
January 11-17 Is National Vocation Awareness Week
MANASSAS, VA (JANUARY 12, 2009) - With appreciation for the important role that faithful Catholic colleges and universities play in fostering religious vocations, The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) joins with the nation’s bishops in celebrating National Vocation Awareness Week, January 11-17.
“Priests and other religious are the backbone of the Church,” said Patrick J. Reilly, founder and president of CNS. “We salute those Catholic colleges and universities that, by their sincere commitment to both faith and reason, have helped young men and women prepare for a lifetime of service to God.”
Several of the colleges profiled in CNS’s The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College have had notable success in promoting vocations, whether through formal programs, a robust campus ministry or by creating a faithful learning environment emphasizing the Catholic intellectual tradition.
One of the most successful venues for encouraging vocations is at Thomas Aquinas College, where 11 percent of students since the college’s founding in 1971 have entered religious life. In a 2007 Vatican publication, President Thomas E. Dillon attributed this success to Catholic faithfulness, the academic program, campus chaplains, the overall college community, the lay witness at the college and a supportive “like-minded” student body.
Similarly, Magdalen College, currently celebrating its 35th anniversary, has sent about 10 percent of its graduates on to religious life. Founded as a response to the teachings of Vatican II about the lay vocation and apostolate, the college graduates most of its students with a Vatican-approved catechetical diploma in addition to a liberal arts degree.
According to Magdalen President Jeffrey J. Karls, “Magdalen sees that the pursuit of wisdom is incomplete without the corresponding pursuit of holiness. This emphasis in the program, embodied in the lives of the college’s faculty and staff, encourages students to genuinely discern God’s will for them.”
“The common life, too, and the impact of the students in each other’s lives provides, as many religious superiors have mentioned, great preparation for the pursuit and fulfillment of the religious and priestly vocations,” he said.
Fifty-four men have gone into the priesthood and another 60 men and women have entered religious life from Christendom College, which opened in 1977. Tom McFadden, the director of admissions, said, “The fact that Catholicism informs everything on campus—from dorm life to academics, extracurricular events to dress code, liturgical life to athletics—students are able to always stay focused on the important things in life, like the Faith and what God is calling them to do with their lives.”
Christendom also has an annual discernment weekend, which Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde attended in 2008, and opportunities are provided at other times for students to discuss vocations with chaplains or to participate in the discernment effort through St. Philip Neri Oratory.
The Franciscan University of Steubenville and Ave Maria University sponsor pre-theologate programs for men considering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. These programs give enriching spiritual, social and academic formation in a community setting while students are pursuing university degrees. There are 56 men in Franciscan University’s program this year, and about 30 at Ave Maria.
Ave Maria also has a unique Women’s Discernment Program designed to help young women discern vocations to the religious, married and consecrated life. Religious sisters of a new Vatican-approved apostolic movement, the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, run the residential program, which includes approximately 20 women.
Father Robert M. Garrity, director of campus ministry at Ave Maria, said, “Simply put, in Newman’s terms, there is a “Springtime” happening in the Church, in which many young people want to do God’s will. We pray for all of our young people, that they will be open to God’s call in their lives, whether the call is to priesthood or religious life, or to holy matrimony, or to the single life of service.”
Among other programs are a Center for Discernment for men and women, sponsored by the Salesian order, at DeSales University, and a relationship between the University of Dallas and the local Serra Club, a national organization dedicated to encouraging vocations to the priesthood.
Joseph A. Esposito, director of CNS’s Center for the Study of Catholic Higher Education, said, “These are some examples of the great work being done on faithful Catholic campuses to provide a new generation of priests and other religious. These colleges take seriously their relationship with the Church and joyfully promote and evangelize the Catholic faith.”
“Hopefully, the vocations work being done by these colleges and others will inspire an even greater commitment among the nation’s Catholic colleges and universities,” he said.
National Vocation Awareness Week was first identified in 1976, and for the last 13 years has been appropriately tied to the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, which this year is January 11.
The Cardinal Newman Society is a nonprofit organization committed to renewing and strengthening Catholic higher education. It is the publisher of The Newman Guide to Choosing a Catholic College, which recommended 21 faithful colleges in its 2007 edition.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
The Real Vocations Crisis: Roman Catholic Church Marriages in Britian Fall by 24 Percent
As I've said before, the dramatic drop in Holy Vocations to Matrimony, Church marriages, and the scandalous number of "divorces" amongst Catholics is the REAL vocations crisis!
From The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford
The number of marriages in Roman Catholic churches in Britain has fallen by a quarter since the start of the decade to just 9,950 last year.
This is a 24 per cent fall on the figure for 2000, when there were 13,029 Catholic marriages across England and Wales.
The rate of decline is twice as fast as the national rate, mainly because the Catholic church does not allow divorcees to re-marry in church.
In total there were 236,980 marriages in 2006 – the fewest since 1895 – but this has only fallen by about 12 per cent since 2000. Only one in three is now a religious ceremony.
The number of Catholic marriages is falling fastest in the diocese of Westminster, covering north London and Hertfordshire, which has seen figures drop by half in recent years, from 1,482 in 2001 to 795 in 2007.
The new Catholic Directory of England and Wales also shows there were 58,991 baptisms of children under seven in 2007, and that 915,556 worshippers attended Mass each week.
Terry Prendergast, chief executive of Marriage Care, a Catholic counselling charity, said: "What is concerning us as a Church is that Catholic marriage is declining more sharply than the rest of the country.
"There has to be some concern as a Church when people are not pursuing sacramental life."
He added that because so many marriages now end in divorce – almost half of newlyweds will end up separating, according to official projections – many Catholics may now be getting married in civil ceremonies or in churches belonging to other Christian denominations.
"It may be the case that the decline of Catholics marrying in church is boosting the national figure because they are marrying elsewhere."
Recently the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, reiterated the importance of marriage for life.
In a letter read out at every Mass, he described marriage as the "clearest example we have of what it means to share your life with another."
Last year the Church of England relaxed its rules to permit couples to marry in churches outside of their home parishes, in a bid to slow the decline in religious ceremonies.
As many as one in six weddings now takes place abroad as brides and grooms try to cut costs and emulate exotic celebrity marriages.
From The Telegraph
By Martin Beckford
The number of marriages in Roman Catholic churches in Britain has fallen by a quarter since the start of the decade to just 9,950 last year.
This is a 24 per cent fall on the figure for 2000, when there were 13,029 Catholic marriages across England and Wales.
The rate of decline is twice as fast as the national rate, mainly because the Catholic church does not allow divorcees to re-marry in church.
In total there were 236,980 marriages in 2006 – the fewest since 1895 – but this has only fallen by about 12 per cent since 2000. Only one in three is now a religious ceremony.
The number of Catholic marriages is falling fastest in the diocese of Westminster, covering north London and Hertfordshire, which has seen figures drop by half in recent years, from 1,482 in 2001 to 795 in 2007.
The new Catholic Directory of England and Wales also shows there were 58,991 baptisms of children under seven in 2007, and that 915,556 worshippers attended Mass each week.
Terry Prendergast, chief executive of Marriage Care, a Catholic counselling charity, said: "What is concerning us as a Church is that Catholic marriage is declining more sharply than the rest of the country.
"There has to be some concern as a Church when people are not pursuing sacramental life."
He added that because so many marriages now end in divorce – almost half of newlyweds will end up separating, according to official projections – many Catholics may now be getting married in civil ceremonies or in churches belonging to other Christian denominations.
"It may be the case that the decline of Catholics marrying in church is boosting the national figure because they are marrying elsewhere."
Recently the head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, reiterated the importance of marriage for life.
In a letter read out at every Mass, he described marriage as the "clearest example we have of what it means to share your life with another."
Last year the Church of England relaxed its rules to permit couples to marry in churches outside of their home parishes, in a bid to slow the decline in religious ceremonies.
As many as one in six weddings now takes place abroad as brides and grooms try to cut costs and emulate exotic celebrity marriages.
"Cincinnati native heeds call to priesthood in Erie diocese"
From Catholic News Agency
By Carmen M. Hubbard
Sometimes hearing God’s call to minister can be difficult to understand. Although Father Johnathan Schmolt’s family knew he had the makings of a priest, it wasn’t always clear to him, he said.
"My family said ‘it was about time.’ Everybody who knows me wasn’t surprised, so I’m the last to figure this out," Father Schmolt said. "In high school and in college, I looked into the religious path as a Jesuit or Dominican. At that time (becoming) a diocesan priest was not particularly appealing. I believed in what I wanted to do and said, ‘Lord, stop bothering me. I tried it and it didn’t work out.’"
Ultimately, the Anderson Township native heeded God’s command and was ordained on June 6, 2008, at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in the Diocese of Erie in Pennsylvania.
He now serves as the pastor of St. Jude the Apostle Church, ministering to 2,300 families. Father Schmolt is one of three priests in the area who entered the seminary over age 30. Typically, men are in their twenties when they enter the seminary right after college, he said.
As a child, Father Schmolt attended Immaculate Heart of Mary School and is a graduate of Covington Latin High School. Father Schmolt, 36, made his way to Erie seeking volunteer opportunities through the diocese while in college during the early 1990s. He spent summers assisting economically disadvantaged Appalachian residents in the area. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Northern Kentucky University, he moved to northern Pennsylvania to work as a computer programmer and continue volunteering through the Diocese of Erie.
"I thought about the priesthood in the sixth grade," he said. "When I got the calling again, I finally asked God what He wanted me to do. It took six years to re-ask the question. It took two months to answer ‘What am I going to do about it?’" he said.
During the ordination, Father Schmolt’s mother, Jeanine, was presented with her son’s maniturgium — a cloth used to wipe his hands with holy oil. His father, Paul, was given another cloth that Father Schmolt wore when he heard his first confession.
"It’s an honor. God has blessed us. The most powerful thing is when you go to Mass and say, ‘That’s my son,’" Jeanine Schmolt said of her oldest of three children. "He was always interested in the church. I said, ‘God is using you for something.’"
Last summer Father Schmolt returned home to celebrate one of his first Masses at Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was a chance for Father Schmolt’s family members who were unable to attend his ordination in Erie to celebrate with him locally.
"His grandmothers would be so proud," Jeanine Schmolt said.
Father Jan Schmidt, pastor of St. Margaret of York in Loveland, was a longtime pastor at Immaculate Heart of Mary and met Father Schmolt when he returned home for Christmas, Easter and on break from the seminary.
"He’s very likable and very helpful," Father Schmidt said. "He’s been involved in liturgy. He’ll make a fine priest. I’m glad and joyful, but I wish he was a priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati."
Father Schmolt said he was never against becoming a priest and enjoys the rewards and challenges it brings. "The priesthood means being full of God and prayer. I get to talk to people who are in trouble. That’s the best part of what you do," he said.
Father Schmolt also leads various staff meetings to "move the organization forward" and "balances the (parish’s) checkbook."
"The whole business component may not have been in the priesthood 50 years ago. I’m very satisfied," he said.
By Carmen M. Hubbard
Sometimes hearing God’s call to minister can be difficult to understand. Although Father Johnathan Schmolt’s family knew he had the makings of a priest, it wasn’t always clear to him, he said.
"My family said ‘it was about time.’ Everybody who knows me wasn’t surprised, so I’m the last to figure this out," Father Schmolt said. "In high school and in college, I looked into the religious path as a Jesuit or Dominican. At that time (becoming) a diocesan priest was not particularly appealing. I believed in what I wanted to do and said, ‘Lord, stop bothering me. I tried it and it didn’t work out.’"
Ultimately, the Anderson Township native heeded God’s command and was ordained on June 6, 2008, at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral in the Diocese of Erie in Pennsylvania.
He now serves as the pastor of St. Jude the Apostle Church, ministering to 2,300 families. Father Schmolt is one of three priests in the area who entered the seminary over age 30. Typically, men are in their twenties when they enter the seminary right after college, he said.
As a child, Father Schmolt attended Immaculate Heart of Mary School and is a graduate of Covington Latin High School. Father Schmolt, 36, made his way to Erie seeking volunteer opportunities through the diocese while in college during the early 1990s. He spent summers assisting economically disadvantaged Appalachian residents in the area. After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Northern Kentucky University, he moved to northern Pennsylvania to work as a computer programmer and continue volunteering through the Diocese of Erie.
"I thought about the priesthood in the sixth grade," he said. "When I got the calling again, I finally asked God what He wanted me to do. It took six years to re-ask the question. It took two months to answer ‘What am I going to do about it?’" he said.
During the ordination, Father Schmolt’s mother, Jeanine, was presented with her son’s maniturgium — a cloth used to wipe his hands with holy oil. His father, Paul, was given another cloth that Father Schmolt wore when he heard his first confession.
"It’s an honor. God has blessed us. The most powerful thing is when you go to Mass and say, ‘That’s my son,’" Jeanine Schmolt said of her oldest of three children. "He was always interested in the church. I said, ‘God is using you for something.’"
Last summer Father Schmolt returned home to celebrate one of his first Masses at Immaculate Heart of Mary. It was a chance for Father Schmolt’s family members who were unable to attend his ordination in Erie to celebrate with him locally.
"His grandmothers would be so proud," Jeanine Schmolt said.
Father Jan Schmidt, pastor of St. Margaret of York in Loveland, was a longtime pastor at Immaculate Heart of Mary and met Father Schmolt when he returned home for Christmas, Easter and on break from the seminary.
"He’s very likable and very helpful," Father Schmidt said. "He’s been involved in liturgy. He’ll make a fine priest. I’m glad and joyful, but I wish he was a priest for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati."
Father Schmolt said he was never against becoming a priest and enjoys the rewards and challenges it brings. "The priesthood means being full of God and prayer. I get to talk to people who are in trouble. That’s the best part of what you do," he said.
Father Schmolt also leads various staff meetings to "move the organization forward" and "balances the (parish’s) checkbook."
"The whole business component may not have been in the priesthood 50 years ago. I’m very satisfied," he said.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Farmington youths open door to God's calling
Parish Vocation Day included visits with seminarians, SSNDsFrom St. Louis Review Online
by Jean M. Schildz
Photo at left: LISTENING FOR GOD’S CALL — Kenrick-Glennon seminarian Drew Burkemper shows a group of seventh- and eighth-graders from St. Joseph Parish in Farmington materials in the library during a tour of the seminary late last year. More than 40 youth from both the full-time school and parish school of religion classes at the Farmington parish were taking part in a vocation day, which included visits to the seminary, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis and the School Sisters of Notre Dame Motherhouse. Rebecca Venegoni Tower
Tweens and young teens craned their necks to see over their peers, periodically pulling out cell phones and pocket digital cameras to snap photos.
"This is cool!" a youth observed to his friends, who nodded their heads in agreement.
Bringing out the fan-frenzylike attention was not a rock star or a professional sports figure, but a visit to Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in Shrewsbury.
Among those pleased to hear the youths’ response was Bob Holst, a Parish School of Religion teacher at St. Joseph Parish in Farmington. "‘Isn’t this cool. Isn’t that cool.’ That’s what we really wanted to hear," he said.
Holst was one of several adults helping chaperone 42 seventh- and eighth-graders from both the full-time school and PSR classes at the Farmington parish who took part in a Vocation Day this past November. The bus trip was sponsored by the local Knights of Columbus.
The visit was led by pastor Father Rickey J. Valleroy. Among those joining him were St. Joseph School principal Jackie Whitworth and the parish’s director of religious education, Sister Marlene Buese, SSND.
In addition to the Shrewsbury seminary, the youth also got to see the old Kenrick Seminary, now Cardinal Rigali Center, also in Shrewsbury, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in the Central West End and the Notre Dame Motherhouse in Lemay. Other stops in the whirlwind daylong tour included McDonald’s for lunch and a trip to Ted Drewes before heading back home.
The Review joined the group for its stop at the seminary and sent a photographer to tag along for the entire stay.
Father Valleroy said it has been his goal since becoming a pastor to offer an annual vocation day to introduce parish youth to what vocations are all about. For most of the youth from St. Joseph Parish, it was their first visit to these sites, he said.
The priest said he wanted the students to get comfortable with the idea of a vocation so they could better understand it.
"I think there’s such a mystery to it," especially for those living beyond the immediate St. Louis area, he said. "This way they can see, firsthand, the joy, and meet the guys at the seminary, and see the life of it." Going to the cathedral basilica, they get a greater appreciation of the larger Church, and visiting the Notre Dame motherhouse gives them a broader picture of what it means to have a vocation, Father Valleroy said. "Every school should send their kids there to hear the talk," he added.
Giving guided tours at the seminary were Cardinal Glennon College seminarians Drew Burkemper, a junior who had been taught by Father Valleroy in grade school, and Chris Seiler, a senior. They divided the group into boys and girls and took off in separate directions to show off the facilities. Both talked about what life was like at the seminary, how they first heard their calling and how God has a call for everyone, even though it may not necessarily be as a priest or to religious life.
Seiler suggested to the girls in his group that they recite three "Hail Marys" daily, asking Mary, "What does your Son want me to do with my life?" He said, "Just give God that chance. If you give Him the opportunity, and listen to Him, open your heart up to what He wants you to do, God will bless you so much in your life for that. If you have Christ at the center of your life, if you have your ears open and listen to what He wants you to do, He’s going to do awesome things for you. He’s going to bless you with a large family, He’ll bless you with marriage, a joyful life as a single person, or blessings of lots of spiritual children as a sister."
The students were amazed at how much studying the seminarians had to do. They also were pleased to learn that seminarians had fun, played all sorts of sports, had their own swimming pool and workout areas, ate good food and that their dorm rooms "were just like the ones at college."
Some couldn’t quite get over how much walking the young men did within the building, hiking up and down hundreds of steps to get to and from the first and fourth floors. "Where’s the elevator?" asked one worn-out youngster.
Father Valleroy was excited to show the youngsters what his life had been like there as a seminarian. His tour included a visit to his old dorm room and a stop at the very spot in the main chapel in the fifth row on the left-hand side of aisle that he claimed as his own while a student there.
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary president-rector Msgr. Ted L. Wojcicki gave the group a blessing before they left. "We’ll pray that some day some of the young men here today will be students of the seminary. May God bless you," he said, making the sign of the cross.
St. Joseph School eighth-grader Robbie Basden attended the trip, like many of his fellow students, as part of his preparation for receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation.
The 13-year-old learned, he said, "that being a priest would be pretty hard, but it would be a very good life." Robbie noted he really liked the seminary. "I liked that you can go to church there and learn about God there. It’s not just a school based on knowledge of subjects, it’s a school based on God."
Eli Pratte, a seventh-grader at Farmington Middle School, said one of his favorite parts of the trip was visiting the cathedral basilica. His parents had been there before, but he never had, he said. "It’s just like how everything’s so beautiful with the mosaics, and there’s just so many pictures and the altar is just amazing," said Eli, who previously attended St. Joseph School through sixth grade and now was in PSR. The trip taught him "that everyone has a vocation, and everybody should try to live out that vocation that Christ gave us."
Abigail Heberlie, a seventh-grader at St. Joseph School, admitted, "Before I went on the trip, I really didn’t even know what a vocation was, and I didn’t know everybody had a vocation." But after hearing from the seminarians and the Notre Dames, she knows differently now. "I thought that was pretty cool that even as a baby, as a 2-year-old, you still have a vocation to be a good daughter to your parents and things like that," the 12-year-old said.
Among her favorites were the visits to the seminary and the motherhouse because she liked to see how the people lived there "and what it would be like if I were to join a religious group."
Abigail said Vocation Day "helped me have a better understanding of what it means to have a vocation, because I’ve been asked before, and I just kind of shrugged my shoulders ’cause I didn’t know what it was, but now I know what it is. I know how to live out my vocation."
"This is cool!" a youth observed to his friends, who nodded their heads in agreement.
Bringing out the fan-frenzylike attention was not a rock star or a professional sports figure, but a visit to Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in Shrewsbury.
Among those pleased to hear the youths’ response was Bob Holst, a Parish School of Religion teacher at St. Joseph Parish in Farmington. "‘Isn’t this cool. Isn’t that cool.’ That’s what we really wanted to hear," he said.
Holst was one of several adults helping chaperone 42 seventh- and eighth-graders from both the full-time school and PSR classes at the Farmington parish who took part in a Vocation Day this past November. The bus trip was sponsored by the local Knights of Columbus.
The visit was led by pastor Father Rickey J. Valleroy. Among those joining him were St. Joseph School principal Jackie Whitworth and the parish’s director of religious education, Sister Marlene Buese, SSND.
In addition to the Shrewsbury seminary, the youth also got to see the old Kenrick Seminary, now Cardinal Rigali Center, also in Shrewsbury, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis in the Central West End and the Notre Dame Motherhouse in Lemay. Other stops in the whirlwind daylong tour included McDonald’s for lunch and a trip to Ted Drewes before heading back home.
The Review joined the group for its stop at the seminary and sent a photographer to tag along for the entire stay.
Father Valleroy said it has been his goal since becoming a pastor to offer an annual vocation day to introduce parish youth to what vocations are all about. For most of the youth from St. Joseph Parish, it was their first visit to these sites, he said.
The priest said he wanted the students to get comfortable with the idea of a vocation so they could better understand it.
"I think there’s such a mystery to it," especially for those living beyond the immediate St. Louis area, he said. "This way they can see, firsthand, the joy, and meet the guys at the seminary, and see the life of it." Going to the cathedral basilica, they get a greater appreciation of the larger Church, and visiting the Notre Dame motherhouse gives them a broader picture of what it means to have a vocation, Father Valleroy said. "Every school should send their kids there to hear the talk," he added.
Giving guided tours at the seminary were Cardinal Glennon College seminarians Drew Burkemper, a junior who had been taught by Father Valleroy in grade school, and Chris Seiler, a senior. They divided the group into boys and girls and took off in separate directions to show off the facilities. Both talked about what life was like at the seminary, how they first heard their calling and how God has a call for everyone, even though it may not necessarily be as a priest or to religious life.
Seiler suggested to the girls in his group that they recite three "Hail Marys" daily, asking Mary, "What does your Son want me to do with my life?" He said, "Just give God that chance. If you give Him the opportunity, and listen to Him, open your heart up to what He wants you to do, God will bless you so much in your life for that. If you have Christ at the center of your life, if you have your ears open and listen to what He wants you to do, He’s going to do awesome things for you. He’s going to bless you with a large family, He’ll bless you with marriage, a joyful life as a single person, or blessings of lots of spiritual children as a sister."
The students were amazed at how much studying the seminarians had to do. They also were pleased to learn that seminarians had fun, played all sorts of sports, had their own swimming pool and workout areas, ate good food and that their dorm rooms "were just like the ones at college."
Some couldn’t quite get over how much walking the young men did within the building, hiking up and down hundreds of steps to get to and from the first and fourth floors. "Where’s the elevator?" asked one worn-out youngster.
Father Valleroy was excited to show the youngsters what his life had been like there as a seminarian. His tour included a visit to his old dorm room and a stop at the very spot in the main chapel in the fifth row on the left-hand side of aisle that he claimed as his own while a student there.
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary president-rector Msgr. Ted L. Wojcicki gave the group a blessing before they left. "We’ll pray that some day some of the young men here today will be students of the seminary. May God bless you," he said, making the sign of the cross.
St. Joseph School eighth-grader Robbie Basden attended the trip, like many of his fellow students, as part of his preparation for receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation.
The 13-year-old learned, he said, "that being a priest would be pretty hard, but it would be a very good life." Robbie noted he really liked the seminary. "I liked that you can go to church there and learn about God there. It’s not just a school based on knowledge of subjects, it’s a school based on God."
Eli Pratte, a seventh-grader at Farmington Middle School, said one of his favorite parts of the trip was visiting the cathedral basilica. His parents had been there before, but he never had, he said. "It’s just like how everything’s so beautiful with the mosaics, and there’s just so many pictures and the altar is just amazing," said Eli, who previously attended St. Joseph School through sixth grade and now was in PSR. The trip taught him "that everyone has a vocation, and everybody should try to live out that vocation that Christ gave us."
Abigail Heberlie, a seventh-grader at St. Joseph School, admitted, "Before I went on the trip, I really didn’t even know what a vocation was, and I didn’t know everybody had a vocation." But after hearing from the seminarians and the Notre Dames, she knows differently now. "I thought that was pretty cool that even as a baby, as a 2-year-old, you still have a vocation to be a good daughter to your parents and things like that," the 12-year-old said.
Among her favorites were the visits to the seminary and the motherhouse because she liked to see how the people lived there "and what it would be like if I were to join a religious group."
Abigail said Vocation Day "helped me have a better understanding of what it means to have a vocation, because I’ve been asked before, and I just kind of shrugged my shoulders ’cause I didn’t know what it was, but now I know what it is. I know how to live out my vocation."
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