Is Your Catholic Vocation Problem Self Inflicted In Your Diocese

The Australian Bishop that was just removed was quite a card. The Catholic Key Blog raises the question if no doubt this could have effected vocations. He ends by saying:


Now, certainly, a website does not represent the full force of a diocesan vocation effort. Our vocation team members – beginning with the bishop – spend their time in the field, magnifying their own efforts by helping to create and sustain a “culture of vocations,” and consequently, we currently have 25 seminarians.

There is a reason why some dioceses have many seminarians, while others have none. It is not the intransigence of Rome on the question of ordaining women.

How true. A few years back at a certain College in Louisiana the Catholic Center had all the Catholic newspapers from all the Louisiana Dioceses.

One paper I observed was from the Diocese of Alexandria Louisiana. That Diocese is very rural and perhaps the second most Protestant in the State. The paper has pictures of many Catholic Seminarians. Other Louisiana Catholic papers not so much. I asked an unnamed Catholic campus minister about this and his answer was illuminating. That those were not of great quality. A lot of as he put it "Steubenville" like folks.

Before that I spent a good many years in Louisiana Campus ministry on both a local and State level. Vocations seemed not to be a huge focus. Instead the theme was married Priests, the new empowered laity, and the ordaining of women were no doubt on the way to save us all.

There are reason why certain Catholic publications seem to refuse to look at Vocation success stories that are happening in the USA. To acknowledge them is to admit that they could be duplicated. Thus a great card they have is taken away.

Now all that sounds harsh but I think it's apt. Thankfully the situation is improving and we are not in the same boat as the 80's and 90's.

Sadly many Catholic in the USA are still kept in the dark about vocation programs that are showing great success. If they knew about them they might start demanding changes.