Posts Tagged ‘Vocations’

A sign of the times

Thursday, August 31st, 2023

It is proverbial wisdom that ‘One picture is worth a thousand words.’ That is certainly true of the picture above – it is worth many thousands of words as we approach the synod in October. Dare I say it, it is worth a thousand of the numbered statements in Denzinger! Please study the picture closely. Read more

No longer the Bishops’ church

Monday, November 14th, 2022

The upcoming plenary meeting of the USCCB comes as the Catholic Church is on its way to being, in some ways, a “post-episcopal” Church—no longer a bishops’ Church. That will likely have a dramatic impact on how Catholicism may influence and interact with American social and political values. The situation arises from the precipitous drop Read more

Sixteen from Vietnam hope to be priests in NZ

Monday, February 28th, 2022

Plans have been made for 16 men from Vietnam to come to this country to study and prepare to be diocesan priests in New Zealand dioceses. When they arrive in New Zealand, it is planned that they will work to complete level 6.5 IELTS academic (English language), while living in their “home” dioceses in this Read more

Britain’s Got Talent singing priest hopes Pope will spark new vocations in Ireland

Monday, August 6th, 2018
Britain's Got Talent

The most famous singing priest of Ireland discerned his call after St. John Paul II’s visit to the country in 1979. He hopes that Pope Francis’s trip in August will also spark new vocations. “I suppose people are a bit down over the Church. Certainly, vocations are down,” says Father Ray Kelly, the 65 year-old Read more

Pope laments haemorrhaging of priests and nuns

Thursday, May 24th, 2018

Pope Francis is lamenting the haemorrhaging of nuns and priests in Europe. God only knows how many seminaries, monasteries, convents and churches will close because fewer people are being called to lives of religious service, he says. Read more

Importing foreign priests is not the answer

Monday, April 23rd, 2018
roman curia

Pope Francis this weekend will ordain eleven new priests for the Diocese of Rome. At a Mass in St Peter’s Basilica to celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Easter, otherwise known as “Good Shepherd Sunday,” the pope will also ordain five other men for two different religious orders. But only five of Rome’s 11 new priests Read more

Single Catholics Church’s blind spot

Monday, November 13th, 2017

The Church should do more for single people, says French journalist Claire Lesegretain. “This is the Church’s blind spot. It’s there, very present, but nobody talks about it. We don’t see them,” she says. Lesegretain, who is single, believes the relationship between the Church and single people should be looked at from a vocational perspective. Read more

More than 50 recently professed religious visit HART in Suva

Friday, June 17th, 2016

Last weekend a group of young men and women spent Saturday working with and talking with people in the Makoi Hart community in Suva. These young men and women are temporarily professed religious living and working in Fiji. Watch the video They come from a number of different congregations: Marist Sisters, Missionaries of the Sacred Read more

Warning about overseas priests emptying Irish parishes

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015

A spokesman for a priests’ association in Ireland has warned that bringing overseas priests in to plug vocations gaps could empty Irish churches. Fr Brendan Hoban of the Association of Catholic Priests said that there is a risk that old fashioned pastoral approaches by overseas priests could empty some Irish parishes in a decade. Two Nigerian priests have Read more

Nuns dying out?

Tuesday, August 25th, 2015

Movies such as The Sound of Music, The Blues Brothers and Sister Act evidence the intrigue surrounding the life of a nun. Nuns in their 30s aren’t as common as they once were so the average person isn’t as likely to come into contact with one. In fact, according to Pew Research Centre data the Read more