Posted on 02/27/2013 11:01:59 AM PST by marshmallow
Seminarians and young priests credit the Holy Father’s example of fidelity with opening their own hearts to the call of Christ.
WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI’s papacy may have lasted eight years, but the retiring Holy Father and his reforms have left their mark on the American priesthood and sparked a new uptick in vocations.
Father Michael Roche, 34, remembers when he left his desk at a Pittsburgh accounting firm to watch the news of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s election to the papacy in 2005.
“I was just thrilled and filled with tremendous joy,” Father Roche recalled. He had walked away from his cubicle at the Grossman, Yanak and Ford building upon hearing the news of “white smoke” to watch the television in the company cafeteria. He was a layman asking questions about his vocation at the time and felt a surge of excitement to learn that Cardinal Ratzinger, whom he viewed as “a figure of strength in the Church,” had accepted the call to take the Chair of Peter.
Father Roche recounted the words of Pope Benedict to young people at his inauguration Mass that inspired his priestly vocation: “Do not be afraid of Christ! He takes nothing away, and he gives you everything. ... Open wide the doors to Christ — and you will find true life.”
“That was pivotal in my life,” Father Roche told the Register. “I can’t say I had been afraid of Christ, but I was not convinced that a vocation to the diocesan priesthood could be lived in this day and age.”
But Benedict’s words filled the young Catholic with a new confidence to discern his vocation. Less than a year later, he joined the seminary to become a priest for the Diocese of Pittsburgh.
As Pope Benedict leaves the papacy to make way for.....
(Excerpt) Read more at ncregister.com ...
My wife and I moved from the Archdiocese of Boston to the Diocese of Austin about 18 months ago. The Archdiocese of Boston might well be called “The Church of Benign Neglect”.
The two years before we move to Texas, the Archdiocese of Boston had a class of one and a class of three seminarians. That’s pretty bad for an Archdiocese with over a million people who claim to be Catholics.
This past Sunday we received an insert in our parish bulletin that had the seminarians of the Diocese of Austin, a diocese with maybe 100,000 Catholics, listed with their pictures and a month of March prayer listing to pray for them, the Pope, Bishop Joe, our parish priests, etc. There were 43(!!) seminarians so the first 21 days have two seminarians for which we should pray!
The Catholic Church is alive an well here in Austin. In Boston, the Catholic Church is a walking corpse and may be snuffed out when those in their sixties and seventies go on to their eternal rewards.
I hope Pope Benedict XVI’s successor looks to where the Catholic Church in America is dying out and where it is flourishing and downgrade some of the current Archdiocese and upgrade some of the current Dioceses. And I also home the See of Peter has the wisdom NOT to move any of the jokers wearing red hats from places like Boston to places like Austin.
I can testify to this personally from the huge increase in seminarians at Mount Angel Seminary in Oregon!
**their sixties and seventies go on to their eternal rewards.**
Or something else! <sarc off/
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