Kresta In The Afternoon: Vatican faces 'urgent' need for priests with new v...

Kresta In The Afternoon: Vatican faces 'urgent' need for priests with new v...: VATICAN CITY ( CNS ) — In an effort to respond to a "clear and pressing" need for priests, the Vatican released a set of guidelines for new vocations ...

HERE IS SOMETHING INTERESTING:

"Some reasons men say "no" to or ignore a call to the priesthood, it said, include:


-- having parents who are reluctant about their son's choice because they have different hopes for their child's future;


-- living in a society that marginalizes priests and considers them irrelevant;


-- misunderstanding the gift of celibacy;


-- being disillusioned by the scandal of priests who abused minors;


-- and seeing priests who are too overwhelmed by their pastoral duties to the detriment of their spiritual life."




Priests who find satisfaction and fulfillment in their vocation are the best advertisement.  Sadly, many good priests and deacons slowly but surely become discouraged and disenchanted, not with their vocation but with the often prolific and oppressive diocesan politics and bureaucracy which can make clerics feel like employees more than as disciples.  The corporate business paradigm must GO once and for all. We clergy NEED a familial model where clergy are treated as BROTHERS not as employees and bishops act like FATHERS and not as corporate executives. Then pastors can be shepherds rather than branch managers.