Although I disagree with him, I accept that we are not going to see women deacons during his pontificate.

But if Francis or anyone else opposes ordaining women deacons, there is a simple solution: stop ordaining anyone as deacons, and let both women and men serve many of the same functions as catechists.

Women deacons - past present and future

The topic of women deacons has caused a good deal of controversy of late: Francis raised hopes that women might be ordained deacons in 2016, when he created a commission to examine the history of women deacons.

This was in response to a request from the International Union of Superiors General, which represents some 600,000 religious women around the world. A second commission to study the possibility of women deacons was formed in 2020.

Sadly, the reports of these commissions were never made public.

At last year's synod, the topic of women deacons was again discussed and received strong support from many delegates, especially the women delegates.

However, this year the Pope disappointed many by removing the topic from the synod agenda and setting up yet another commission to study the issue, which will report back in 2025.

And when asked in his May interview with CBS News about women's ordination, the pope gave a flat "no" to women deacons.

He seemed to believe that women who acted as deacons in the early Church were not ordained, although RNS columnist Phyllis Zagano and others have done extensive historical research showing they were in fact ordained.

Deacons and catechists

Deacons cannot celebrate Mass, hear confessions or anoint the sick, but they can baptize, preach at Mass and preside over weddings and funerals.

As ordained ministers, they are members of the clergy, not laypersons. Permanent deacons remain deacons all their lives, whereas transitional deacons are eventually ordained priests.

The permanent diaconate was revived for the Catholic Church in the 1960s by the Second Vatican Council, where the council fathers thought it would be helpful in mission territories.

But the hope that permanent deacons would spread the word in Africa, southern Asia and other places traditionally considered missionary lands never came to pass.

Today the United States is home to almost 20,000 of the 50,150 Catholic deacons in the world, or about 40 percent, according to the Vatican Statistical Yearbook.

The U.S. and Europe combined have more than two-thirds of the world's deacons.

There are only 500 or so deacons in all of Africa, fewer than in the Archdiocese of Chicago, which has more than 850.

Instead, Africa's Catholic bishops prefer catechists, who may be men or women.

There are more than 450,000 catechists in Africa.

They teach the faith, hold Bible study, run small Christian communities, prepare people to receive the sacraments and do Communion services when priests are not available.

The African bishops put a great deal of resources into training catechists.

Lay vs. ordained Catholics

Those who advocate women deacons point out that only the ordained, whether deacons or priests, can give homilies at Mass or preside over weddings.

Catechists can do neither, and expanding their role would neither give women a greater role in the Church nor expand the number of people who can minister to the faithful.

But in the case of giving homilies, this is simply canon law and can be changed, and laypeople can be delegated in many circumstances to preside at a wedding.

The ministers of the sacrament of marriage are the couple, not the priest or deacon, who only witness the marriage for the Church.

Similarly, lay people may preside at funerals without a Mass. And any layperson, even a non-Catholic, can baptize.

In truth, there is nothing a deacon can do that a layperson cannot do.

I am not saying that many male deacons do not do wonderful work for the church. I am simply saying that they could do the same work without ordination.

Concerning clericalism

The diaconate has drawbacks that catechists do not.

As clerics, the diocese is financially responsible for them under canon law.

If a deacon's wife dies, he cannot remarry unless he gets a dispensation, which is not always granted. If a deacon gets in trouble, the Church must use the same complicated canonical process used for laicising priests.

Limiting the diaconate and priesthood to men is painful for many women in the church, but if we cannot ordain women as deacons, there is no reason we have to ordain men.

If the point of ordination is simply to give the deacon more status, this is another form of clericalism.

There are not enough priests, which means that people do without the Eucharist, without confession and without the anointing of the sick. Too many Catholics die without the sacraments because there is no priest available.

If deacons were allowed in emergencies to perform the latter two sacraments, they would have something important to do that a layperson cannot do.

But as they cannot, we can do without them. The church existed for centuries without the permanent diaconate.

If the church doesn't need women deacons, it doesn't need men deacons either.

The U.S. church would do well to follow the example of the African church and forget about deacons and develop a catechists' ministry.

• First published by Religion News Service
• The Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a Jesuit priest, is a Senior Analyst at RNS.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commissioned the Center for Applied Research (CARA) at Georgetown University for an annual survey.

From January to March of this year, CARA surveyed almost 400 seminarians who are scheduled to be ordained to the priesthood in 2024.

Survey findings

More than 80 percent of respondents were to be ordained diocesan priests, while almost 20 percent were from a religious order. The largest group of respondents, 80 percent, were studying at seminaries in the Midwest.

The survey found that half of the graduating 2024 seminarians, "ordinands," will be ordained at 31 years or younger — younger than the recent average. Since 1999, ordinands were on average in their mid-30s, trending slightly younger.

This year's ordinands were involved in their local communities growing up.

As many as 51 percent had attended parish youth groups, while 33 percent were involved in Catholic campus ministry.

A significant number (28 percent) of the ordinands were Boy Scouts, while 24 percent reported that they had participated in the Knights of Columbus or Knights of Peter Claver.

Involvement in parish ministry was also a key commonality for this year's ordinands.

Surveyors found that 70 percent of ordinands were altar servers before attending seminary.

Another 48 percent often read at Mass, while 41 percent distributed Communion as extraordinary ministers.

In addition, just over 30 percent taught as catechists.

The path to priesthood

Most seminarians first considered the priesthood when they were as young as 16 years old, according to the survey. But the process of affirming that vocation and studying to be a priest takes, on average, 18 years.

Encouragement helps make a priest, according to the CARA survey.

Almost 90 percent of ordinands said that someone (most often a parish priest, friend, or parishioner) encouraged them to consider becoming priests.

Discerning the priesthood is not always an easy path, and 45 percent of ordinands said they were discouraged from considering the priesthood by someone in their life.

That person was most often a friend, classmate at school, mother, father, or other family member.

The survey also found that most ordinands had Catholic parents and were baptized Catholic as infants.

Eighty-two percent of ordinands reported that both their parents were Catholic when they were children, while 92 percent of ordinands were baptized Catholic as an infant.

Of those who became Catholic later in life, most converted at age 23. Read more

• Kate Quiñones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and a fellow of the College Fix.

Be not ordained
Priesthood is for men only
Don't follow me, for they will give you grief.

We laughed then, but decades later, it is not very funny. In fact, it is rather tragic.

What is tragic is that women and some supportive men, non-binary people too, have had to put enormous energy into something about which the institutional Roman Catholic Church is so recalcitrant.

Imagine if those energies were unleashed to attend to the everyday needs of people who look to ministers for support and guidance, or if human and financial resources were trained on climate change, anti-racism, reproductive justice and reproductive justice and LGBTQI+ rights.

I am not suggesting that the work to make ordination inclusive is unimportant.

To the contrary, it is crucial and appreciated.

But that it must be done, and redone, and done some more for almost 50 years, is something to lament.

Anecdotal evidence and several studies show that the institutional Roman Catholic Church's continued refusal to ordain women is a major reason why American Catholics (among others) have left it in droves.

Let's be clear, the bald ask is to allow women to be part of the clerical system and the decision-making apparatus of the institution, and even that is rejected.

Proposals for new models of ministry in a renewed church are not even entertained.

In a sense, I am delighted by the exodus.

Why participate in and support something in which most people are second-class citizens by design?

Women are the majority of Catholics. The contradiction is so blatant as to be beyond discussion.

Airy-fairy notions that a Petrine principle and a Marian principle determine such matters is hocus pocus, not theology.

Ditto for the newly minted notion of an "administrative way" that Pope Francis thinks women are more gifted in, for example, being a secretary or manager.

Talk about a Hail Mary pass.

Nuptial imagery of Jesus as the "bridegroom" and the church as the "bride" is theo-babble that no serious theologian would attempt to argue today.

Decades ago, the great theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether listened to some poor clerical chap try to explain that women could not be ordained because women do not bear a natural resemblance to Jesus in the Eucharist.

She is reported to have asked the priest to show his natural resemblance.

Audience laugher ensued and that should have been the end of that. Alas, it was not.

Most people have no idea what these allegedly theological things mean.

But they do know that women and nonbinary persons are as much "fit matter" for ordination as people with male genitalia.

The skills, commitment and training necessary to minister have absolutely nothing to do with anatomy, symbolically or otherwise. Period. Biblical and theological scholars settled these questions a generation ago.

Still, some people trot them out as if for the first time.

Be not deceived. Continue reading

• Mary E. Hunt is a feminist theologian who is cofounder and codirector of the Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER) in Silver Spring, Maryland.

According to figures from the national bishops' conference, the Church in France was ordained 122 new priests this summer - 77 diocesan and 45 from religious congregations.

One can spend a long time discussing these numbers.

Catholics who are more or less resigned will deplore the decline in vocations. Others will see the figures as a reason to abolish mandatory celibacy or ordain women.

And still others will urge the bishops to follow the example of those dioceses or communities that are attracting vocations.

What these three seemingly different attitudes have in common is that they focus on numbers - numbers that should be increased one way or another. But perhaps this is the wrong way of looking at the problem.

To put it provocatively, we do not "need" priests who will be available to everyone to provide various spiritual services. We must place ourselves on another level.

The priest is first of all a sign of God's concern for his people. The priest is a gift that God gives to his Church to guide it and help each of its members to advance on the path of holiness, through listening to the Word of God, sacramental life, fraternal service, and so forth.

But are we aware that God wants to make us a holy people, a people of saints?

The vocation crisis is perhaps above all a crisis of the desire for holiness, an issue that is apparently absent from the synodal consultation's feedback.

It's a desire to live more and more in the grace with which God fills us and which transforms us interiorly, to the point of making us new beings.

What use are priests to us if we have no desire to be made holy?

And how can we desire to become saints if there is no longer anyone to remind us, through a choice of life totally dedicated to the building up of the Church, that God calls each one of us to holiness (cf. Lev 19, 2) and sustains us on this path by his grace?

That is why we need priests. But not just any priests, especially after revelations of various types of abuse committed by the clergy.

We need priests who will not be puffed up by pride, but who are fully dedicated to the sanctification of those entrusted to them.

Hence the fundamental role of Christian communities in the discernment of vocations.

• Dominique Greiner is a senior editor at La Croix, as well as a moral theologian and Assumptionist priest.

Among those who are to be ordained are Samuel Piermarini, who gave up a promising football career and Riccardo Cendamo, a former film director. Read more

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had recently made an official statement deeming this language improper for the conferral of baptism.

Not only did this affect Father Hood himself and the many people who had received sacraments from him, but it also brought about significant questions from the people of the church about what the case means for sacramental life.

The person acting as minister must intend to do what the church intends to do with the sacrament.

Most prominent among these questions are the sacramental validity of the baptisms, confessions, marriages and more that Hood performed during his priestly ministry.

Fr John Baldovin, S.J., a sacramental theologian and professor at the School of Theology and Ministry at Boston College, offered America explanations for many of the important questions that have arisen as a result of Father Hood's case.

Baldovin noted that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has the authority to say what is and is not valid when it comes to sacramental language and form.

Theologians, however, also have the right to raise questions, he said.

It is important to recognize, Baldovin noted, that other forms of baptism have been used validly in the church throughout history.

Even today, some Eastern churches, both Orthodox and those Eastern Catholic churches in union with Rome, use a different form.

Some early churches used an interrogatory form in which the baptismal candidate was asked a set of questions about his or her belief in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, and was immersed in the baptismal font after each affirmative answer.

Baptism is unique in that any person can be its minister.

Baldovin points out, though, that the person acting as minister must intend to do what the church intends to do with the sacrament.

Importantly, that intention must be expressed both internally and externally.

While it could reasonably be assumed that Deacon Mark Springer baptized Hood with goodwill in his internal intention, his external expression of the sacrament—even if its aberration from the essential form was an honest mistake—is what the statement from the C.D.F. invalidates.

The central question of the case lies in the matter of sacramental validity—in other words, the church guarantees that God's grace is present in the sacramental act.

Baldovin makes an important suggestion about validity's meaning and impact: "Too many people think invalid means unreal."

On this point, he stands in agreement with the Letter to the Faithful From Archbishop Vigneron of Detroit that addresses the case of Hood.

Vigneron urges hope when he writes that "[t]he Church, following the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, recognizes that God has bound Himself to the sacraments, but He is not bound by the sacraments."

While we can be sure that God acts in sacraments properly conferred, Baldovin said, the boundaries of God's grace and power are not delineated by the sacraments alone.

The deacon's errors were meaningful and should not be repeated, he noted, but they do not necessarily limit God's power to act. Continue reading

Father Matthew Hood learned that he was not a baptised Catholic earlier this month after watching a family video of his baptism and where some words were changed.

The words used at his baptism are not sanctioned by the Church.

Hood remembered a video of his own baptism ceremony in which the deacon said: "We baptize you…."

Hood realised his baptism wasn't valid - which meant he wasn't confirmed nor ordained.

According to sacramental theology, only a baptised Catholic can validly receive the other sacraments, since baptism is the means by which a person enters the Church and is incorporated into the body of Christ.

The trouble was, in the three years since his ordination, Hood had worked as a priest, baptising people, confirming them, celebrating Masses, offered absolution and marrying couples.

Once he realised Hood called his archdiocese. He needed to be ordained!

But first, after three years of acting like a priest, living like a priest, and feeling like a priest, he needed to become a Catholic!

First, he needed to be baptised.

After receiving the sacrament of baptised he was confirmed and received the Eucharist. He made a retreat, was ordained a deacon and on August 17 he was ordained a priest. (As pictured.)

Hood called the ensuing two weeks "a roller coaster".

"My heart goes out and breaks for those for whom I've celebrated Mass, Mass intentions I've offered, the confessions I've heard, and especially the sacraments of anointing of the sick that I've celebrated for people on their deathbeds, my grandmother included among them," Hood said.

St. Thomas Aquinas once famously said, "God binds Himself to the sacraments, but He himself is not bound by them."

Hood said, The Lord is still merciful and fully capable of imparting grace even when human error occurs.

Archbishop Allen Vigneron of the Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit has acknowledged "human error has resulted in disruption to the sacramental lives of some members of the faithful" and vowed to remedy the situation for those impacted.

"As far as God ‘taking care of it,' we can trust that God will assist those whose hearts are open to Him", the Archbishop said.

On August 6, the Vatican released a document saying that baptisms using the word "we baptise" rather than "I baptise" makes the baptism invalid.

A doctrinal note accompanying the CDF letter said it has received number of cases in which baptisms have been administered using the words: "In the name of the father and of the mother, of the godfather and of the godmother, of the grandparents, of the family members, of the friends, in the name of the community we baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

The document was signed by Cardinal Luis Ladaria, head of the Vatican's doctrinal office, and by the department's secretary, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Detroit Catholic
• Crux
• Image: National Catholic Reporter

NZ Catholic understands that Bishop Denis Browne, Emeritus Bishop of Hamilton, will ordain Deacon Roger Gilbride, FSSP, to the priesthood and Mr Brendan Boyce, FSSP, to the diaconate on Saturday, October 3. Read more in NZ Catholic.

The event had been postponed from April because of COVID-19 restrictions.

And because COVID-19 Alert level remains at 2, numbers were still restricted.

Nguyen said that while he was happy to be ordained he was sad none of his family from overseas were able to attend because of COVID-19 travel restrictions.

The ceremony was streamed online, and he plans to visit his family once things return to normal.

The 31-year-old is originally from the city of Vinh, about 300km south of Hanoi in Vietnam.

He has been living in New Zealand for eight years.

He has family in seven countries and three of his brothers are training to be priests in India, Colombia and the United States.

Nguyen started helping his parish when he was 12. He later studied a philosophy degree.

When he came to Palmerston North he had to learn English at the English Teaching College.

He then moved to Auckland to train at the Good Shepherd College for six and a half years, which included a one-year placement in Hastings.

Fr Trung said that adapting to the culture and learning English, had been difficult; "but the love from the people around and the encouragement helped me to overcome those challenges."

He has been appointed as an assistant priest in the parish of Hastings.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• cpon.org.nz
• Image: stuff.co.nz

Furthermore, since 2000 the statistics show a decline in the number of new priests in Poland, as well as a rise in the number of those leaving the priesthood.

Around 350 new Catholic priests have been ordained each year in Poland in the last few years. There were 1,272 in 2017, the last year for which data are available.

The total number of priestly ordinations worldwide in 2017 was 5,800.

While the overall number of diocesan priests around the world has been growing since 2000, reaching 281,000 in 2017, the opposite trend is true for Europe. There, numbers have fallen to 125,000 - down from almost 141,000 in 2003 and 132,000 in 2011.

The other major trend highlighted by the data is a rise in the number of those leaving the priesthood.

While data varies from year to year, the global trend was a reduction until 2009.

This was followed by a steady rise in resignations throughout the world. In 2017, 739 diocesan priests left the priesthood.

In Europe too, more diocesan priests have been leaving in the last decade, although a much higher number was recorded in 2012, with 222 cases, than the 146 from 2017, reports Deon.pl.

Even though in Poland, 73 priests resigned in 2017 (half the European total), the Church is still considered very influential in Poland.

Over 90% of Poles say they are Catholic.

However, a Pew Research survey in 2018 showed church attendance among the younger generation is falling in Poland at the fastest rate in the world.

Only 26% of those below the age of 40 go to church every Sunday, compared to 55% of the over-40s.

• La Croix
• Image: Wikiwand
  

On his website Food For Faith Fr John O'Connor was commenting on a feature in the Press about the recent ordinations in Christchurch.

But he was disappointed that the report managed to turn a good news story on its head with the online version posted on Stuff.co.nz sporting the headline: "three become priests while numbers receiving the call decline in New Zealand."

"It was the online version that I read first and as I read I felt a gloom descending.

Tragically most who catch the headline would read no further and continue their lives with a reinforced merging of the words 'priests' and 'decline.'

"A brief interview can do little more than convey an idea or two slanted with a personal, populist and often negative bias," he said.

"However a personal participation in the gathering itself has the power to convey the beauty and significance of the event."

O'Connor agrees that there are fewer people at Sunday Mass these days than when he was ordained thirty years ago, but he is not concerned by this.

"It is not our mission to be big and powerful. Our Christian history reminds us that secular, capitalist and commercial measures are unable to measure the beauty and power of life lived in loving relationship with Jesus Christ."

O'Connor said that contrary to the suggestion of the Press article, a growing number of people, many newly awakened to the insatiable promises of secular opportunities, are seeking to give their lives within marriage and work commitments to wholeheartedly following a deeper, transcendent and divine calling.

Source

• Food for Faith
• Image: Food for Faith

At this site a white cross that marks the place where the first mass celebrated in Tonga took place on 2 July 1842.

Pangaimotu is a small island in the Tongatapu group lying near the capital. It is reachable by a 10-minute boat trip from Nukuʻalofa.

The morning mass was attended by more a thousand Catholics from throughout Tongatapu and 'Eua who travelled to the island by boat.

A spokesperson from the Catholic Church Diocesan Centre, Toutaimana said a plaque was unveiled by Cardinal Mafi to mark the anniversary.

As part of the celebration Cardinal Mafi ordained Lutoviko 'Olie to the priesthood on 29 June, at Pea.

Pea was the first village to receive the Catholic Faith. Father Joseph Chevron of the Society of Mary came to Tongatapu under instruction from Bishop Pompallier, accompanied by Brother Altaic.

Chevron and Altaic were responding to an invitation sent to them at Lakeba in Fiji, through relatives of the chief of Pea, Moeaki.

Lutoviko began his training for the priesthood at Marist College Suva in 2008. In November last year he graduated from Pacific Regional Seminary with a Bachelor in Theology - Magna Cum Laude - accredited by the Urbanianum University, Rome.

Currently he teaches at Apifou College.

Source

• Matangi Tonga
• Oceania Marist Newsletter
• To Live Among the Stars
• Image: Talaki Matangi Tonga

All three were ordained as diocesan priests for the Christchurch diocese, where they have been working as deacons.

Supporters witnessing their priestly promises of obedience and service of the church and its evangelising work included family from New Zealand and overseas, fellow students - among whom about six are from Vietnam - and many seminary staff.

The ordination represents the international flavour of the Church, says Fr Paul Shanahan.

Huynh (called Anthony) is from Vietnam, Graeme's family is from New Zealand and although Alister is also a New Zealander, his parents are from the Philippines.

Shanahan says he, along with 40 to 50 priests concelebrated the ordination. They included Merv Duffy, who is the acting principal of Good Shepherd College and Brendan Ward, who is the rector of Holy Cross Seminary.

The emeritus bishop of Christchurch, Basil Meeking, was the ordaining prelate and Anthony's uncle, who is a Bishop in Vietnam, presided in attendance as a concelebrant.

The MC for the ordination, Fr Chris Friel, arranged the celebration with "a beautifully done liturgy," Shanahan says.

This acknowledged the new priests' diversity. There were two choirs - one of which was Vietnamese - and the second reading was read in Vietnamese. Translations were included in the service sheet.

"There was a wonderful spirit of faith and support at the ordination," Shanahan says.

"It brought back memories of my own ordination day in Christchurch's basilica (now earthquake damaged). There were eight of us ordained that day.

"It was a very uplifting occasion and many of the [now elderly] clergy were encouraged to see 'reinforcements coming'," he added.

The ordinations were streamed live on YouTube.

Source

• Juliet Palmer
• Image: Peter Flemming

Mulryne, who is reported to have once earned £600,000 a year, has also taken a vow of poverty.

He made his debut in 1997 with Manchester United and won 27 caps for Northern Ireland. Read more

The survey run by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University shows most of the new priests went to Catholic schools.

Family example is another important factor in their vocation: a third have a relative who is already a priest or religious.

While about half say they were actively dissuaded from entering the seminary, most - 82 per cent - say they had encouragement to enter the priesthood by someone they knew - mainly priests, family members or friends.

One of the survey's authors, Dr. Mary L. Gautier, says these characteristics offered the new priests opportunities to be aware of and around priests as they were growing up.

"Encouragement from family, friends, the parish priest, the teachers in the school, all of that makes a difference" and was a "very important" factor in their decision, Gautier said.

The survey also shows a small reduction in the average age of ordination since 1999: where the average age used to be 36, the class of 2017's average age is 34.

The average age the newly ordained priests started seriously considering entering the priesthood was when they were 16.

Encouraging wider diversity in the seminary is a challenge, Gautier says.

Seventy percent of those who responded to the survey were Caucasian, and just 25% were born outside the United States.

Reflecting the country's ethnic and cultural makeup is a challenge; for example, around 34% of all US Catholics are Hispanic.

"I think vocation directors are aware of the challenge and are actively working to increase vocations in the Hispanic community, but it's not reflected in the numbers of ordinands, at least this year," Gautier said.

Source

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: Catholic Herald

According to the National Catholic Reporter, the Vatican published the ruling on Thursday after Pope Francis approved the interpretation of church law during a Pontifical Council in May.

The Catholic Church considers the sanctity of life "so absolute" that the new ruling even includes men who were not Catholic at the time of the abortion, according to the report.

The Catholic Church is a strong advocate for the right to life of unborn babies across the world. Pope Francis frequently speaks out against abortion and encourages Catholics to support pregnant and parenting moms and their babies.

"All of us are called to respect life and care for it," he said during a trip to Poland in July.

"On the other hand, it is the responsibility of the State, the Church and society to accompany and concretely help all those who find themselves in serious difficulty, so that a child will never be seen as a burden but as a gift, and those who are most vulnerable and poor will not be abandoned."

The report has more details about the new ruling:

Canon 1041 of the Code of Canon Law defines as "irregular for receiving (holy) orders" a person who has "committed voluntary homicide or procured a completed abortion and all those who positively cooperated in either," as well as "a person who has mutilated himself or another gravely and maliciously or who has attempted suicide."

A question was submitted to the Vatican asking if the canon also applies to a non-Catholic and therefore would require a special dispensation if the man were later to become Catholic and seek ordination as a Catholic priest. The pontifical council answered, "Affirmative."

Source

• LifeNews.com
• Image: tamedcynic.org

The decrease reflects a continuous downward trend, with only 122 diocesan priests ordained in 2005; five decades ago, in 1965, the number was 500.

While there were almost 20,000 Catholic priests in Germany in 1990, today their number has already dropped to 14,000.

The drastic decline is set to continue, judging by the figures: last year also marked the first time in history that the number of new seminarians dropped to double digits.

Only 96 new students were registered in 2015. At the same time, 309 priests passed away, and 19 left the priesthood.

The crisis of vocations to the priesthood is not just one of sheer numbers.

A recent academic study showed that amongst the current clergy, more than half - 54 percent - go to confession only "once a year or less."

Further official numbers, published in July, confirm that the precipitous decline of the faith is not just restricted to the number of vocations: average church attendance in Germany is down from 18.6 percent in 1995 to 10.4 percent in 2015.

The number of people departing the Church has increased within the same time frame, having peaked at over 200,000 annually in recent years.

The German bishops have mostly responded to the ordinations' crisis in a twofold way.

They've first abandoned the traditional parish structure in favor of larger "pastoral areas," which take different names in different dioceses.

In these, lay people, both paid and unpaid, play an increasingly important role in administering the Church.

Secondly, several dioceses in Germany have large numbers of foreign priests working for them, mostly from Poland and India.

Not all of these priests are fluent in German and/or familiar with cultural norms and traditions - which in turn occasionally leads to conflict.

Some disagree with the bishops' response, saying the drop indicates the need for reform, and others suggesting it's been artificially induced in order to change the Church.

Source:

• Catholic News Agency
• Image: www.liturgy.co.nz

And a single Gospel passage about casting out nets was decisive for Fr Austin Fernandes in his vocational journey.

Korean-born Fr Park and Indian-born Fr Fernandes were ordained at St Patrick's Cathedral on July 16 by Auckland's Bishop Patrick Dunn.

They are the first of their ethnicities to be ordained as priests in Auckland, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in the world, said Bishop Dunn.

"Here in the diocese we come from many different cultures, many different languages, many different families, but we share one gift: the beautiful gift of the priesthood," said the bishop at the ordination.

Bishop Dunn said it was consoling that although the diocese had lost two of its older priests in recent days, Msgr Lui Tevaga and Fr Ivan Lunjevich, "we are now ordaining their replacements."

Fr Marchellino Park

Fr Park said he entered the seminary in Korea at age 12. However at 17 he changed his mind and went to university instead and also did his military duty.

He had an aunt in the Sisters of the Divine Master in Auckland. She said Bishop Dunn invited him to New Zealand to explore the possibility of priesthood.

Fr Park said he stayed with Msgr Brian Arahill at Remuera parish in 2008 to learn English. He moved to Holy Cross Seminary, but only to study English.

In December 2009 though, he had what he called a big accident in Auckland. "Three people beat me up. They wanted my money. I was in a coma for a couple of days and then I was in intensive care for a couple of days as well. Some people thought I would die. Thank God I'm still alive," he said.

It was while he was lying in his hospital bed that he thought about his life. "I realised that God gave me my second life. I wanted to offer it to him. I want to use it for him. He was calling me to be a priest and to serve his people," he said.

The robbers were caught by the police. As part of restorative justice, he met with the man and came to forgive them. "They said they were sorry. I think some were sincere. I told them I came here to forgive them in my heart. After that I felt more at peace," he said.

Fr Austin Fernandes

The first inkling of a call from God happened at a retreat in India in 2000 for Fr Austin Fernandes.

"I wouldn't say it was a calling as such, but that retreat changed my life," he said.

Fr Fernandes, 45, migrated to New Zealand in 2003 and worked for an engineering company. Around 2005 or 2006 Fr Fernandes said he explored an option to be a permanent deacon, with help from Msgr Arahill. But a spiritual advisor suggested he look at priesthood.

After reading the Gospel passage where Jesus told Peter to cast the net into the sea, even though Peter had spent the night failing to catch fish, Fr Fernandes decided to enter the seminary.

This was despite some misgivings about how his family would react.

"Mum was very happy with my decision," he said. Fr Fernandes said he would be a priest not of a particular community, but a priest ‘for everyone', a spiritual father.

The families of the two priests travelled from their respective countries to celebrate the occasion with them.

Used with permission from NZ Catholic newspaper.

The following day, at 9.30am, he will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving at Our Lady Star of the Sea, Howick, where his parents live and where he sang in the choir for ten years.

Born in Windhoek, Namibia, Justin grew up in South Africa, where he lived in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.

He comes from a family with a very diverse range of faith expressions, from devout Catholic to equally devout Anglican (an aunt is an Anglican priest) to agnostic and atheist. Continue reading

Sr Leticia Rawles, 67, was ordained in April by the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests and has since presided over religious services.

Currently critically ill in hospital, Sr Rawes said she wanted to fulfil a call to priesthood she had since childhood and be ordained before it was too late.

Her Sisters of the Precious Blood order said she was dismissed as a result of her action.

Supporters of Sr Rawles have appealed to the Vatican to let her stay as a nun, even if it doesn't recognise her priesthood.

Continue reading