Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said at the MacGill Summer School yesterday, "It is not just that the number of candidates (for priesthood) is low.
"It is also that many of those who present themselves are fragile and some are much more traditional than those who went before them.
"There is a danger that superficial attatchment to the externals of tradition may well be a sign of fearfulness and flight from changed realities."
In many respects that is sensational coming from an archbishop. But is is succintly accurate. And the archbishop has only said the gentlest and kindest words about the current phenomenon.
Last week in a church a lady referring to a young man in his mid-20s studying for priesthood said, "the young boy is so good looking".
Is that the language or the sentiment that a woman would usually use when referring to a man in his mid-20s?
Older men express their embarrassment at the external behaviour of many of the young men studying for priesthood.
And the archbishop did not say a word about the real elephant in the room.
Is it not glaringingly obvious what is happening?
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3 comments:
I think many Catholic's would agree with Archbishop Martin comment's on the profile of young men seeking admission to seminaries.Many of them seem to be operating out of a pre Vatican 11 mentality,often reinforced and encouraged during their year's in formation.Hardly the kind of formation needed to deal with the present realities of the Irish Catholic church. It would seem that your Order's vocation director fundamentally disagree's with Archbishop Matin analysis as evidenced by his comments at irishdominicanvocation.blogsport.ie
When readers send comments to this blog the comment is either posted or deleted. This blogger is not aware if it is possible to edit comments. At least, to date comments have not been edited. And in that context, apologies for the redundant apostrophes in the above comment.
Some time back a Dominican student was sneering at the 'have beings' (sic). The comment had been posted on a facebook page in reference to the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP).
I don't think you can edit comments in Blogger once they are submitted.
I have had the problem of spotting mistakes in some of the comments I have submitted on blogs and, as far as I can see, the only way to correct/edit them is to copy the comment to the clipboard, then delete the comment on the blog. Open a new commnent, paste in the old one and edit it. It messes up the datestamp and sequence of the comments, though.
Same problem on Twitter.
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