Posted on 05/30/2005 12:31:46 PM PDT by RFT1
There are five of them --- three born in Vietnam, one in England and one honest-to-goodness Valley boy.
Two are over age 60 --- one a widower inspired by a vocations talk at church, the other about to realize a dream that began in a Vietnamese seminary academy nearly half a century ago. One is mid-40s, a former actor and standup comic. The two youngest are (like the ex-actor) graduates of St. John's Seminary College in Camarillo.....
PING
And only one home grown.
knowing how the archdiocese is run, I am not surprised....and thankful that they have any.
"One is mid-40s, a former actor and standup comic"
Should keep the congregation's attention at homily time. No mumbling or er's and um's for him!
Somebody should find the 10 top U.S. parishes that have produced the highest number of priestly vocations per 1000 parishioners; and the 10 top dioceses. Interview the newly-ordained priests, their former pastors, and their bishops, and find the common factors which would account for the high number of ordinations, and then work out an action plan to boost vocations in other parishes and diocese -- but only ones who woud enthusiastically volunteer to work on the same targeted plan.
Hasn't anybody done this yet?
The more traditional the parish, the more vocations they produce. For example, St. Agnes in St. Paul MN has at least 12 seminarians, SS Cyrill & Methodius in the Detroit Arcdiocese from what I heard is going to have 10 of its men in the seminary come this fall, and these arent suburban mega parishes, they both probably have 1,500 parishoners eatch.
NEW PRIESTS --- Having completed formation at St. John's Seminary in Camarillo are
Robert Garon (from left), Joseph Nguyen, John Tran, Joseph Wah and Khoa Mai. They will
be ordained to the priesthood June 4 for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Photo: MIKE NELSON
Passing them in a mall only one would be recognized as a priest. Why? Are they ashamed of their vocation?
The much-smaller archdiocese of Atlanta (about 300,000 Catholics on the rolls) ordains more than that every year--and most of our new priests are from the US, though not necessarily local.
A very sad and steep decline for the once proud archdiocese as it was under Cardinal McIntyre, or even Cardinal Manning. One thing that does blow my mind is that not one of the new priests is Hispanic. I guess the canidates trained at the seminary set up by Cardinal Rivera in Mexico City are "too rigid" for the LA archdiocese.
reminds me of a new priest my former parish had, shortly before I left. He was in his early 40s and had just been ordained. Previously he had worked in the corporate world. His homilies sounded just like a sales pitch one would hear in a boardroom. I almost expected a projection screen to drop from the ceiling and the priest to start up a power point presentation. This was actually a good thing! This priest was very orthodox and very on fire for Christ. His business-world styled homilies caught one's attention and presented the Gospel in a clear, unambiguous way. I left the parish soon after he arrived, not because of him, but because my family moved away.
Public speaking is a gift. Many holy men don't have it and it's a shame. Most great leaders had charisma. Combined with piety, that's powerful.
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