By Father Joe Kim, Director of Vocations and Seminarians
Last September, the Diocese of San Jose Vocations Office conducted a survey of 1,178 Catholic high school and Catholic college students in our Diocese. The results are helping to shape our diocesan plan for promotion of vocations to the priesthood and religious life. The main conclusion is that young people cannot imagine life as a priest or religious.
Although over 95 percent have a desire to do something great with their life however difficult, only 1.9 percent of young men say they would seriously consider priesthood and 0.9 percent of young women say they would seriously consider religious life. All would encourage a friend who is seeking a vocation, but the youth respondents struggled to understand why a young person would consider a vocation at all. When asked why someone would become a priest the most common response was “to serve God.”
Given that our diocese needs to ordain 45 new priests in the next 14 years just to cover for retirement of our clergy, these conversations with young men in our local Church are particularly significant.
Full story at The Valley Catholic.
The survey was conducted at the diocese’s Catholic high schools? Start by inquiring into what is being taught in religion classes at those schools. Hint: it’s not good for the Church, what’s being taught there, but it’s great for the Democrat Party.
I dare say you’ll find a much, much larger percentage of Catholic high school students in the DSJ want to be left-wing, Democrat politicians than priests or religious because that is what they are being taught to value and aspire to, and those are the models being upheld as virtuous and admirable.
To be even more explicit, the Catholic schools practically replace Jesus on the Cross with Barack Obama. There, you have your answer.
An interesting contrast
https://liturgyguy.com/2016/04/30/why-arent-other-dioceses-looking-to-lincoln/
Being a 28 year old who has seen the collapse of the priesthood, as we know it, in my Diocese (in Socal). Piests who are living actively homosexual lifestyles, severe alcoholism, depression and other serious vices. One has to wonder what it is it that is turning these men into such weak and failed ministers in their sacred duty? Is it not the lukewarm, watering-down of the faith after Vatican i and II?
Why would someone my age want to fall under an oath toward a prelate that support Hillary Clinton (still), promotes the LGBT lifestyle as “part of the church”?…completely insane.
It is more likely to be from a lack of prayer. Prayer works because God wills that priests be holy. If God calls you to the priesthood please say yes. You will have crosses and contradictions, trials and tribulations. We were always taught that you can still get to heaven if you don’t pick the right vocation but it will be much harder. There are many diocese in the US with faithful bishops and priests. There are many orders that ordain priests. If you desire to be solely extraordinary form there is the FSSP.
Eric, you see depression as a “serious vice?”
ERIC: “Piests [sic] who are living actively homosexual lifestyles, severe alcoholism, depression and other serious vices. One has to wonder what it is it that is turning these men into such weak and failed ministers in their sacred duty?”
So…when a man is suffering from alcoholism and clinical depression, you dismiss him as “weak and failed” then?
Hmm…I wonder how you classify people suffering from PTSD and other disasters? If you are young and healthy, thank God for that, but don’t discard others who are suffering so easily: there, but for the grace of God, go you.
You miss the point. Let me ask you, do you think a priest suffering from alcoholism, depression, or homosexuality is strong and successful? More to the point, do you think that a young man considering the priesthood, would want to emulate or follow such a person? It seems to me that Eric is simply commenting about his experiences regarding the priests with which he has observed. I have to say, as a man old enough to be Eric’s father, I would think twice about encouraging him to pursue a calling to the priesthood.
Then you should even less encourage him to the vocation of marriage.
Let’s face it, why would anyone want to take vows and live under a rule of some kind, or be diocesan, if the job is mere social work and pablum with a very thin Catholic veneer? Heck, I could be a Mr Helper type as a layman, and not have to answer to a superior or bishop. The largest/wealthiest diocese in the world, Los Angeles, hasn’t hired but a small group of native-born Americans. Most seminarians there are: African, Asian, Latin American
Which of us, after a Sunday sermon, would willingly be martyred on the Church steps as Mass let out, based on what we just experienced? Are you willing to die for the “be nice to people and vote Democrat” tripe we get in the Church these days?
The empirical evidence shows that a serious return to orthodoxy should result in an increase in vocations. Where’s the Undo button for Vatican II?
Why would a young man want to be a Priest? For starters, in a world that has grown more permissive with each of the last fifty years, celibacy is a hard choice to make. Preparation is a difficult process. Generally five to seven years after the undergraduate degree. Does it really take that long? Low pay? I know, vocation vs. job, but still car payments are high, money for clothes, gym fees, etc. all adds up. Other denominations experience the low turnout as well, but …. In other denominations, the pastors can be married the same as they can in the Eastern Rites of the Roman Church. They have wives, children and all of the issues of leading a family, but still do all the things a Catholic pastor does. Maybe celibacy ought to be…