There is no vocation crisis

This should go out to every single priest in the world!

I am very grateful to Jamie for her thoughtful comments, born from experience, regarding young adults and vocations to religious life. Her words offer me food for thought as I think about this important issue for members of religious congreations, especially in the U.S.

Jamie, I am glad to hear you are a professional writer, because if you were not one, I'd encourage you to quckly become one. Well done! Whenever there is a call to "pray for vocations" at church, I want to leap to my feet and shout, "Our prayers have been answered! Hallelujah"

Ms. Manson laments "how sadly out of touch Vatican officials are with the hearts and minds of many young adults." Perhaps so. But the reverse side of the coin might also be worthy of lament: many young adults are sadly out of touch with the hearts and minds of Vatican officials, who are bound to probably the greatest collective memory of mankind on the planet.

Excellent! You hit the bulls-eye!!!

Please Jamie do not feel like the lone ranger. Many older Catholics also find Rome out of touch with the signs of the times.

Our recent and current hierarchy will have much to answer to the coming decades. Until then we can only feel sorry for their misapprehension of reality -- and also maybe feel grateful for the way they unwittingly give birth to a new vision of ministry, a birth they would undoubtedly prefer to avoid. :-)

Bravo Jamie! Your justified anger at this rediculous charge is inspirational. I share that anger though I'm hardly a youth. At 73, I am blessed to be an out lesbian in my parish and to be fully welcomed and accepted. Unfortunately my parish is an exception to the Catholic Church's usual response to those who take Jesus' message of love seriously.

Yours is one of the best responses I've seen. Thank you. Kara, Oakland, Ca

This is a beautiful and quite brilliant article by Jamie L Manson. I savored every word and congratulate the staff at NCR for publishing it. Inspirational and insightful on every level. The Holy Spirit at work!

We know that God is all powerful so "to suggest that God's calling is not powerful enough to permeate a culture purportedly awash in vapidity, violence, and darkness" is silly sounding. When it seems to come from our hierarchy it makes you wonder if they have any of the faith they are supposedly guarding and handing on. Yes, people are doing Jesus' work all over the world even though they may not be doing organized RCC work.

YES!! This is one of the best things I've read regarding vocations in a long while. Thank you for writing it. You hit so many nails squarely on the head.

There is no shortage of vocations among the members of my generation - but I think there is a shortage of response from the Church.

I do think that there is a shortage of men willing to make lifelong commitments, whether to marriage or priestly or religious vocation. I don't think that it is peculiar to Catholics. I know several wonderful women who can't seem to meet nice men interested in a sacrificial, lifelong commitment. I think that the priestly shortage is partially a symptom of that. I think that there is a crisis in regard to men that needs to be discussed.

Jamie, over and over again, points us to the new Church that is beginning. It is the one replacing that institution which finally fell, and will continue to fall, because it does not see things clearly, or refuses over and over again to admit the truth even if it does see things clearly.

This new Church will be smaller in numbers than its predecessor, but will be purer.

Jamie's honesty is more than refreshing -- it is life saving to readers like me. "She" has a gift, and has the courage to present that gift without fear of repercussions.

To speak the truth, knowing you will always be attacked by those unwilling to face it, is a blessing and a curse.

Would that the world be filled with her kind.

Let's recap: The cardinal speaks out against "superficial contemporary cultures" yet somehow justifies "processing" around in a 40 foot red silk train borne up by seminarians wearing white gloves. What's wrong with this picture?

Right on, I have always felt that the response was there and that it was the bishops that were out of touch. I have refused to prayer for vocations, Remeber the old adage-pray as if everthing depended on God but work as if everything depended on us. The only thing the bishops would do is pray but never work to find a way to adapt.

So which is it?

The hierarchy is causing the vocation crisis:

"In order to understand why young people are turning away from religious life, Cardinal Rodé and his associates would do well to consider the extent to which the Roman Catholic institution has contributed to such a culture."

Or there is no crisis because God's calling can't be stopped by the culture:

"There is no vocation crisis. To suggest that there is would be to suggest that God's calling is not powerful enough to permeate a culture purportedly awash in vapidity, violence, and darkness."

It appears you want to blame the hierarchy for the problem and then say there is no problem.

The "vocation crisis" may be centered in the Vatican. All bishops/no shepherds.

Thank you, Jamie. Very well said. I would add that it's not only young people who see the contrast between the Gospel and the judgements of the Vatican. Most of my Catholic acquaintances with grey hair feel the same way.

Congratulations,for articulating the love of Jesus for us all. As an older person still struggling to understand the Church I have always thought that this so called crisis is ok. My understanding is that GOD knows OUR NEEDS and wants us not to be afraid of embracing the changes. Pity some of our Priests don't understand the message.
Thank you again it was a priveledge to read your article may you and all our young people be richly blessed.

Great response - the problem is not wanting to receive the vocations, with their insights, their ideals and their dreams. For new wine (blood), new wine skins . . . . the hierchical structure of the Church is in crisis, not God who continues to call men and women to serve and unveil God's kin-dom.

Well said Ms Manson. The young people have not failed to answer God's call. The church has failed to recognize and embrace them.

A thought-provoking piece that questions many assumptions. When first I read the headline I thought I was in for reading a screed in denial of the reality we cope with every day. Today we do have a brutal and expensive shortage of ordained folks,with parishes of many years standing and with considerable parishioner support being merged because there's not enough by way of priests to continue as we were.

The article suggests the Church has only itself to blame. I do know a number of highly intelligent women who have left the Church because of the glass ceiling. The Church's stance that Jesus' disciples were all men is historically accurate as far as we can tell from material coming down to us. However, that may merely reflect the fact that Jesus picked his battles with care, and formally naming women as disciples would have closed the ears of people he wished to have hear him. Whether that would be His attitude today is at best unclear, and likely nonsensical. Jesus' only inflexibility was with the inflexibility of the Pharisees. Indeed, we cannot be sure but that the prevailing pattern of male dominance over the following centuries may have pruned the role of women out of the narrative.
And we do know that priests used to marry freely, before Trent.

I do hope Rome wakes up to the dimensions of the problem before Priests become as few as Bishops.

Wow! Outstanding!!
Way to go, Jamie!
So who are the real Christians (Catholic or otherwise) out there? The guys with the ornamented vestments and mitres on their heads? Or the ones in the trenches doing the work of the Gospels.
Old Men, Old Theology. They just don't get it.

Jamie -

Beautiful piece.

I do think you overstate your case, engaging in some of the same "either/or" thinking I read in your piece on "devotions". 'shame and blame young people"? i couldn't help but wonder at first if we read different articles. who **doesn't** say that the dominant culture is hard to opt out of? it is so insistent, so pervasive, so seductive. that observation is not exactly original thinking on Rode's part. that observation has not been original since Jesus' time. it has simply become more true.

As I have said elsewhere, Rode is not tasked with addressing the other vocations to priesthood, marriage, single life, right? So the context for his remarks is vocations to vowed religious life. Young people are increasingly engaged in lay movements and, thus, their commitment and willingness to sacrifice is evident in their lay involvements...and there is absolutely nothing I can find in Rode's comments that suggest he denies this.

There is no affirmation or denial because he does not address lay vocations and movements. Commitment and sacrifice in lay vocations was not - is not - Rode's focus or his responsibility to address.

Jamie, is there a reason people keep arguing "with" him about what he does not say about what he does not address, i.e., lay and clerical vocations? i just keep coming back to the fact that he does not address them because he is not tasked with addressing them. it seems so straightforward to me. i am being sincere. when you are tasked with responsibility for kitchen tables, do you spend your time taking de facto responsibility for kitchen chairs and sinks and cupboards? or do you spend your time focused on kitchen tables? in my world, if you don't want to drive everyone around you nuts, you focus on kitchen tables and trust the rest of the team to focus on the chairs, sinks, cupboards. again, i am being sincere. his job is not lay vocations or the priesthood, Jamie. not the priesthood as it is now or the priesthood as you dream of it, with women priests. it is religious life - brothers and sisters - in the Church today. I am serious, Jamie: why do people persist in critiques based on his lack of comment about topics he is not tasked with commenting about? It makes me tired. it is great food for the food fight but not very nutritional.

anyway, I am going to copy and paste your piece, cut all the the pieces that speak to lay vocations, the priesthood (actual and dreamed of), etc., and go back and read your piece for the parts that analyze Rode's actual talk (as opposed to the talk you wish he had given) and for the parts that speak to religious sisters and brothers................

..............because I do think you speak to the very important reality that there are many causal factors for the numbers of vocations to vowed religious life being what they are and i am interested in knowing more.

I know that, for years, I could not make my peace with the Catholic Church because of what I believed and continue to believe is its wrong teaching on homosexuality and committed homosexual relationships.

Then, I sensed that I might have a vocation to religious life in the Catholic Church whether i liked it or not and despite my druthers and lack of peace about certain teachings. When I began discerning religious life, my Catholic lesbian friends were among the first I spoke to because I needed to think through the impact of a such a decision on those people, on their sense of dignity as children of God. And, to a one, they told me that they would support me as long as I continued to speak the truth I have always spoken with them: love is love and families are families and committed love is committed love. Just as irresponsible sexual conduct and relationships are irresponsible sexual conduct and relationships, period.

In contrast to your experience, Jamie, my Catholic gay friends and colleagues are thrilled that I am considering religious life in the Catholic Church because they know that I would be a sincere and consistent and loving voice "on the inside", asking questions about current teaching and doing so in ways that support the beauty and longevity of the Catholic Church they love. It is the teaching of the Gospels, of Jesus, of the Catholic Church about the inherit value and dignity of all life, all that is made in God's image, that sustains their dignity even when humans and the RCC struggle with all God is. None of them wants the Church abandoned or destroyed for its lack of understanding about their lives; they love and value its understanding in so many other areas and they believe the Church will come to a new understanding as God's creation continues to unfold. To a one they are glad that I am able to say, "I struggle with the Church's teachings re: homosexuality and I will pray that God leads us through this age to a place of peace as a community about this teaching while I go on living the truth that love is love". and, just as they do, I go on engaging with the Church in its "unitary wholeness". Granted we are all in our 30s and 40s but we are all post-V2 cradle Catholics and the beauty that Catholicism got through to us, loud and clear and eventually, even when we thought it was wrong sometimes and even when it hurt us sometimes.

I have deep compassion for people who cannot reconcile themselves to the RCC because of some of its teachings. I was unable to for years and years. We strugglers are nothing new under the sun nor is the imperfection of the Church itself. Christ was perfect, and even he struggled...

All that said, beautiful piece and much to think about, Jamie.

Jean Brookbank

Thorough and true reflection. Amen, Jamie, Amen!!

But this is not limited to young adults. When I was studying for my MDiv with the Jesuits in Berkeley, the overwhelming majority of schoolmates were second and third career men and women responding to a numinous and entirely encompassing calling to do what was incumbent upon them to prepare for service.

Unfortunately, as you describe, our service, dedication and call are not supported by the church that we love. For those who narrow and bend their own gifts and calling into the very limited directions that the church has made available - increasingly forced by finances or lack of ordained males - they come up against the church version of the glass ceiling -- clericalism. It is bad enough to deal with on a personal, professional and emotional level, but it becomes most unbearable for the pocketbook. Having shelled out tens of thousands of dollars to pursue their call unassisted by the church, their pay and benefits pale in comparison with the priest's who neither paid for their identical education, nor pay for their daily livelihood, health insurance, and retirement afterwards. That factor adds to the difficulty of remaining in church ministry even if one has given it a good run while one could.

Insult is added to injury when the leadership then point accusing fingers at the laity because of some imaginary lack of vocations.

Well written and right on. I am 56 yrs old, female and a cradle Catholic, and I don't think Jesus would recognise the Church today as the one that came from him.God works in mysterious ways and her ways and thoughts are not ours, how dare the church authorities stand in judgment of others and decide what they think is happening in the faith lives of others. Only God knows our hearts and our true desires, and she loves us exactly as we are, nothing we will ever do will make her love us less and nothing we will ever do will make her love us more.

Working with college students, I must admit that what you say, Jamie, is true. Just look at the example of Anne Hathaway's family reported this week. That family left Catholicism to go to the Anglican church since Catholicism rejected their gay son/brother. The hierarchs may be immutable and deaf, but the Spirit is alive and working renewing the face of the Church and world.

"It is sad to think that they were raised in a church that refuses to see them for who they truly are and to take the courageous risk of meeting them where they are." This is backwards. Re-read Matt 5:16-26.

This is a well done, insightful article, and I think it hit the nail on the head. The only thing I would add as contributory is that the "vocation people" sometimes tend to harrass young unmarried males about whether they are called to be priests. The harassment gets so bad at times that sometimes even people who may be attracted to ordained ministry become turned off by it.

Jamie.

I would add that the definition of 'vocation' needs work. There are many, many laity who have vocations that are truly vocations; just not vocations to consecrated life. I see this as an opportunity to allow all vocations a role in the church.

Kudos to Ms.Manson for nailing this article on the head.

WEll-done article. Articulate, on-point, and reflective of the social truths of the times rather than ideological promulgations endlessly spewed from Rome.

This excellent and true commentary should be required reading for every ordained person, including the current pope. The remainder of us non-ordained People of God should also take Jamie's words to heart. Such an endeavor could lead one to know the true meaning of hope in this community of ours. Thank you for your comments Jamie.

Jamie Mason says in a nutshell exactly what needs to be laid bare. The fundamentalists and "conservatives" that dominate the Roman Catholic Church openly and blatantly serve themselves in two fundamental ways. 1. They are determined to establish their own self-righteousness and slake their personal thirst to be acknowledged as possessing the right, true, and holy unassailable truth which commands every last detail and particularity of human attitudes and behaviors. They lust to possess this truth all to themselves so that others 'look up' to them and marvel at their power and dignity, and holiness. 2. They are determined to preserve and manipulate an institution that confirms their own self-righteousness and insatiable desire to be the ultimate truth. How? Quite simple. Search out and destroy careers of those in universities who do not parrot their formulations and conceptions. Pick out groups and marginalize them, e.g., women, the divorced, gay and lesbian. Threaten and carry out excommunications. Maintain a two-tiered order of worth and dignity among human beings through specialized training, ritual, design of the liturgy, dress and authority,and enjoyment of wealth, i.e., maintain the clear distinction between clergy and lay. This list could go on and on. Jamie Mason has said it far more eloquently than I. Bless her.
What young people who want make an honest effort to love God above all and their neighbors(fellow human beings) as themselves would leave that calling and join the upper tier of male Roman Catholics who are lifted above and unsullied by the mire?

You're right, in Africa, most of South America, and in some dioceses in the United States (those dioceses that have adopted aggressive recruitment programs to encourage young men to pursue the priesthood) there is no vocation crisis. In dioceses in which the bishop is unconcerned with vocations, or dioceses wherein the bishop prefers to have the ordination of women or married clergy, the lack of vocations is evident. In addition, the constant trotting out of the sexual abuse scandal (a scandal that has been largely dealt with by the US bishops) does not help matters, as it discourages men from considering a vocation (which, I sometimes think is the entire point of the exercise for many writers and commentators).

As to the issue of AIDS in Africa, might I suggest that the author do some homework? Those countries with large Catholic populations in Africa show the smallest number of infections from HIV/AIDS. The 2003 edition of the World Factbook from the CIA, cites Burundi at 62% Catholic and 6% infection rate; Angola, 38% Catholic and 3.9% AIDS rate; Ghana, 63% Christian with a 33% Catholic population in some areas and a 3.1% AIDS rate. By contrast, nations like Botswana with only a 5% Catholic population has an AIDS rate of 37%. In 2003, Swaziland had a 38.8% AIDS rate and a Catholic population of less than 20%.

My point in this is that those nations wherein sexual ethics is taught and practiced demonstrate a substantially smaller infection rate than those in which anything goes. While the Left, which seems at times to worship the condom, is only interested in distributing the things as widely as possible (in the faulty belief that people are gonna do it anyway, since we're the same as animals when it comes to sex, so we may as well make sure they're "safe"), they neglect the fact that the only absolutely safe sex is abstinence until marriage, followed by being faithful to one's spouse after marriage. If we teach that to Africa, instead of simply taking the easy way out and shoving condoms in their faces, we might actually have a change to eradicate AIDS on the continent.

Finally, there is more to life than who we sleep with. The author might consider that as well.

I have been a religious for almost 44 years. Much of what Jamie Manson says resonates, especially calling out the outlandish idea of blaming young people for embracing a secular culture. Yet, Jamie proves that by embracing the world in which she lives, breathes, moves, and has her being, she lives a life of discipleship.

The bridal spousal image that permeated my early years of formation never really took. Spouse of Christ? How does that work, exactly? But discipleship, vowed, committed, discipleship according to the charism of my community, within the Church, following Christ, loving Christ and others in Christ, meant and means something to me as mu journey continues.

A few years ago, maybe around 2004, I went to a gathering of the Focolare at their large facility in Castel Gondolfo for a meeting. I met a priest friend (a religious) who had arrived from London. He had never been there before. He looked around and said, "I am seeing the end of religious life."

I asked him to explain and he said that if all these young adults, in vowed commitment (single, married, ordained, in community or not), had found Christ in a lay institute, religious life, within an institute such as the Focolare, and the Focolare are flourishing world wide, why would they become religious? This is the new form of committed, vowed life of discipleship in the Church.

Perhaps it is both/and but the "and" seems to be winning.

This is a motive for rejoicing not harkening back to the past and accusing through generalizations. I would rather build-up the Church in whatever way the Spirit leads, discerning, yes, but willing "to put out into the deep". There is no time for mourning. Let us be up and doing, living and loving for Christ. As John XXIII threw open the windows to let the Spirit in and love flow out, as Pope Paul VI said, "in fidelity and relevance" and JPII, "in freedom and responsibility" and Benedict XVI, "in hope, charity, and truth."

The secular world didn't happen yesterday. The Church and members of the Church have had a lot to do with creating this secular culture. Now that it is here, how shall we be Christ in this culture? No more blame-the-women game, please. Let us work together in joy to heal the Church and the world as disciples of Christ the Divine Teacher.

There is no salvation outside the world.

Is there a silver lining to Cardinal Rode's investigations and speeches (and attire)? Look at the wonderful theological reflection it continues to instigate, the shared outrage, yes, but great spiritual beauty and love in action is being revealed through the responses of the faithful.

Will we end up thanking Cardinal Rode?

Talk about the divine irony of this possibility!

Wow. What a deeply moving article. Thanks for the Good News Jamie Manson.

There is a vocation crisis. The crisis is whether the clerical church will recognize the work of the Holy Spirit in emerging ways, reflecting what Ms. Manson's blog suggests.

Crisis is a decision point. We have been at this point for many years as the seminaries, convents, and monasteries showed declines in numbers. We've been at this point for years when bishops and priests blamed parents, especially mothers, for not steering their children toward clerical or religious life yet, as Ms. Manson rightly observes, without accepting their responsibility for the decline as well.

The crisis or deciding point began with Vat II when the windows were opened and a new, broader approach to being church emerged.

There is a piece of truth, however, in Cardinal Rode's concern about a culture of secularism, sensuality, and selfishness. That has contributed, as it has throughout the ages, to an erosion in vocations. And with todays extremism whether in technology or life styles or sexuality, that kind of culture affects a sense of sacredness, a sense of prayerfulness, a sense of personal care. But the Holy Spirit always provides us in grace with new ways to counter those encroaching forces. And it is an Amazing Grace.

May God bless your ministry and your courage in speaking truth to power.

Beautifully stated! The future of our dysfunctional Catholic Church, and also
our dysfunctional U.S. government is clearly in the hands of the next generations. It is impossible to teach old dogs new tricks. Keep on keepin'
on. I may not live long enough to see the changes, but I know they will happen.

Jamie, this is a wonderful piece. It should be sent to Cardinal Rode at once.

Thanks Ms. Mason.We who minister in the church without religious and clerical vows have nonetheless consecrated our lives to Christ. But that isn't acknowledged. I for one agree that we have plenty of "vocations". In our parish alone their are 5 young people who went to college on their own nickle with an eye toward working in ministry. They did not do that for financial gain, but for the Kingdom. Thanks be to God for them, all the others who work in God's vineyard.

I am one of those who would have offered myself for discernment had either the deaconate or the priesthood been open to women, and my husband--who is a permanent deacon--would have become a priest if married men were allowed to do so. There is indeed a vocation crisis in the church: our prelates, by turning away two thirds (or more) of those who would willingly offer themselves for service, are at war with the Holy Spirit. God calls whomever God wills, and if the Church leaders refuse to perceive this and demaand that call be limited to a specific small group--what would you expect? Exactly what we have: a Church reaping the fruits of her leaders' intransigence!

I looked into the deacon program and soon found that it wanted 'yes' men. Men who would accept guidance and leadership without question, without thought, without moral evaluation except that which they were told to accept without question. Men who would 'sacrifice' their life to the direction and control of a priest or bishop. I found little ennobling about this. More akin to religious slavery. Needless to say I didn't apply.

As a Catholic with 16 years of Catholic education that taught me to make my own decisions and to evaluate everything in the Spirit and Wisdom of Christ, I felt like this Church was not the one I was taught about. I like your article. The Church lives while Rome dies. It is sad.

This is truly a magnificant article. It is sad to speculate that those who should read and meditate on it won't; it is even more of a pity that these same would read and refuse to see and act upon its truth.

While not denying the significant element of truth in Rode's observation it is itself sinful to equate this element to the whole; to retreat to a time, a context where the "evil grew in the night", regardless of the sanctimony of the regressive. If indeed evil is contemporary, can it be addressed by medieval strategies and tactics?

There are many stories in our religion, our culture, where the poor man, the stranger was helped, to be revealed later as the king or Jesus. These characters, these "good Samaritans", exercised charity as a human virtue. Jesus recognizes and acknowledges these as He would recognize and acknowledge His father, that is the creator in us. That is where "vocation" starts and is as valid, and so often, in my mind, more so, than any which is rewarded by a position, collar, status or pretending to see Jesus where they are really seeing themselves and their ego.

One of the best commentaries I've ever read on NCR. Thanks so much. Amazingly enough the Catholic right has little to say in response to this. As someone, I think, mentioned there is a crisis not in vocations but in the hierarchy. Can you imagine an American bishop writing this thoughtful piece--e.g. Daly in NY. He's worried about his red hat, George, he's worried about the next conclave, Rigali, Law--all careerists. So thanks for this.

"Right between the eyes!"

An absolutely great article to which I can relate even though I'm part of the pre-boomer generation. I experienced exactly what was described in this article. I returned for my undergraduate degree in the 1990's at a Jesuit university pursuing Sociology and Psychology, eventually working as a Social Worker. I believe that my chosing to be a Social Worker was every bit as much of a calling as any person who was called to be a vowed or ordained religious person. There was a time when I felt a call to the priesthood and was told by a priest that I could lead a priestly life as a lay person. At the time his reply was not much consolation because I still believe women are being called to be ordained priests. However, he was partly right. I know now that I touched people's lives in ways perhaps many priests are not able to and they were a healing presence to me in that process as well. I know the Holy Spirit is at work to bring about a different Church, changing the definitions of what it means to be women religious and religious women. I'm not waiting for the Vatican to change in my lifetime, but I have come to a different understanding of what ministry and "calling" means and live my life according to this understanding.

As rector of a college seminary on the campus of a Catholic university in the midwest, I appreciate Jamie Manson's insights about today's young Catholics. She is certainly correct in her positive appraisal of the commitment, passion, and sacrifice of so many Catholic young adults, including those who are entering seminaries and religious houses of formation. She is also correct in recognizing that many young Catholics are hungry for a deeper spiritual life and mission, yet do not find it this within the Catholic Church. Nor do many young Catholics expect the Church to offer any significant role in helping them sort out life's most important questions and choices.

How has this come about? And what is to be done about it? Most will answer these two questions according to their existing theological, ideological, and personal presuppositions and convictions. I don't agree with all of Jamie's assertions, and she would likely not agree with all of mine. Yet this issue, this most critical issue of the mission, vocation and ecclesial identity of today's young Catholics will require that we listen to, and speak with, this generation very attentively, especially when their paradigms of spirituality and religion do not easily map onto our own.

One of the realities of the level of younger (and middle-aged and older) Catholics making life choices to the Church is that now there are a good deal of ADDITIONAL choices to a life of religious committment that did not exist until rather recently. While the numbers of those in consecrated life and secular priesthood will never rebound much in the US and Europe (and this will eventually be the case in Africa and South America and Asia as well), attention should be paid to the number of faithful who belong to Catholic sodalities, lay institutes, the deaconate, parish and community ministries, and so on. Indeed, those are the groups that are flourishing and will continue to grow. Prior to post Vatican II years, there were only two "church" choices: the priesthood or religious life. So all of us who felt a calling to a religious vocation went to one of the two options, or remained as part of the laity with very few forms of involvement open to us. The church is flourishing, but not in the more traditional ways. It is in the many new or revived paths that have come into existence in recent decades, and the work of Christ goes on. We the Church aren't dying....we're emerging in new ways. The pain of having to see what we loved and admired in the past decline and perhaps even be extinguished is hard for many to bear. The only way to survive this transition is to embrace what is emerging, and to preserve the most vital parts of what was in what is now. That way, the Church never loses what is rightfully hers: it's all there, just in a different form. We can remain the same yet different. Because, in truth, there never was just one way to serve Christ. His apostles and disciples showed us that.

I'm generally in favour of married priests. I used to be in favour of ordaining women, but I've become cool to the idea of ordaining women priests since it seems to be proceeded by, or is followed by, a loss of orthodoxy. It has been such a universal problem of women's ordination that I've come to the conclusion that teaching and maintaining orthodoxy might be a gift of the spirit only to men in a strict hierarchy.

Of course, I'm completely against ordaining anyone who thinks they are entitled to be ordained. If you wish to serve the church, you should be willing to serve the church. If it doesn't bother you if you are not selected to lead the mass and perform the sacraments it is probably a good sign that you are a candidate for the priesthood.

If you are complaining that you want to be ordained because you have a useless bachelor of arts, social science or divinity that any chimp can get with the slightest effort, and you will only serve and defer to authority if you feel like it, then you are probably just someone who wants to live off the earnings of others as a mini-potentate with their own parish.

If you are a flake who feels that you have a "great destiny" that can only be fulfilled by ordination because that is what the "holy spirit" is telling you (you have a good imagination and thus can make the biochemicals in your body give you pleasant feelings) then you are probably just going to be an insufferable embarrassment.

Not embracing those with the "gift of the spirit" enough. Pah! As far as I'm concerned the priesthood isn't restrictive enough. It is time to end the notion that self-discernment is the most important quality for determining a suitable candidate for the priesthood or religious life.

We are faced with thinking from a past age. The Vaticanus Rex.

In some ways, this article does speak very well of the vocations outside the priesthood and religious life, and bear food for thought. In other ways, though, it is a disappointment. The usual liberal hobby-horses are dragged out--ordain women, bless "alternative sexualities", stop insisting on life-long marriages, allow contraception--and then Ms. Manson complains of a lack of compassion when the Church says "No", throwing in the usual snarks about the predator-priest scandals as if they were relevant.

The fact is, those who invoke the "signs of the times" to justify resistance to the Church's teaching magisterium on such matters are engaging in a "bandwagon" fallacy. The Church doesn't exist to validate people's lifestyles but to call people to extraordinary holiness through faith in Christ. Part of this call requires that we "take up our crosses" (Mt 16:24-25), which includes, in some matters, not doing what we would otherwise prefer to do even though it may cause suffering. The ruling guideline for authentic Catholic teaching is not second- or third-wave feminist social studies or "queer theory" but the apostolic tradition; invoking a theory of power structures that is fatally dependent on the language of Marxist dialectics is not only inappropriate but irrelevant.

Calling for radical changes in Catholic moral and theological dogma in order to make certain groups feel more accepted is a bogus compassion that does more harm than good and is unfaithful to the Gospel message. Sometimes the more authentically compassionate course is to say "No" rather than "Yes", as any good parent can tell you.