"We should not ... be relying on priests from Asia and Africa."


"I don't see how any church ... can thrive if its spiritual leaders ... are not from the same culture."



Adapted from this source: FIRST THINGS, November 2008. Number 187. Richard John Neuhaus' own section, "The Public Square," page 70.

"Dean Hoge, who died at age seventy - three his September, was professor of sociology at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and he for thirty years directed studies of almost every facet of the Church's life in this country.

"Though he was a Protestant, he said he considered himself as much Catholic as Protestant.

"In a recent talk on the state of the priesthood, he noted that today's seminaries are producing new priests at a rate of between 35 to 45 percent of what is needed to maintain the current number of active priests."

Hoge is then quoted as saying:

"In a nutshell, we need at least a doubling or ordinations to maintain the American priesthood as we know it. But this is impossible."

Then, Neuhaus ponders:

"I assume Prof. Hoge agreed that with God nothing is impossible.

"Doubling the number of ordinations in the near future, one may allow, is improgable.

"Hoge said that the average Catholic parish in the country has 3,200 [Here in Brackettville, we're lucky if we can honestly count more than 10% of that!] members and, because of the growing number of Catholics, that average will increase by about 10 percent in the next decade.

"He made a number of interesting suggestions.

"We should not [be relying], he said, on priests from Africa and Asia.

"(About four hundred are now coming each year.)"

In Dean Hoge's opinion:

"I don't see how any church ... can thrive if its spiritual leaders -- that is, mainly it clergy -- are not from the same culture as its laity."

To which Neuhaus responds:

"I suspect he was right about that.

"...[Hoge] also suggested that the way should be eased for Protestant clergy, married or unmarried who want to become priests.

"[H]e said, Now, the process is long and arduous."

Neuhaus gives us some personal insight into this last:

"You will not surprised that I agree with him on that.

"My way to becoming a Catholic was long and arduous, but, once that step was taken, the way to priesthood, thanks mainly to John Cardinal O'Connor [of New York!], was not....

"[S]uch converts typically have impressive pastoral experience and are frequently more knowledgeable about Catholic faith and life than those who have not had to think and pray their way into the Church.

"Finally, however, the answer is to aim at the improbable.

"The hope of doubling the number of ordinations in the next decade depends on priests but also, even more so, on parents.

"Any qualified Catholic young man who has not been invited to seriously consider a possible vocation to the priesthood has been cheated.

"The greater sadness is not the shortage of priests but the number of those who were called and did not answer...."

NOW COMES SOME LITTLE GREEN CLOWN FROM SOME OTHER PLANET -- LET'S SAY MARS -- AND LAUGHING HIMSELF SICK, HE ASKS US POINT BLANK:

"So, how is the Holy Spirit taking care of all this religious vocations business here locally in Kinney County?" (Ha, ha, ha!) :) "

OUR ANSWER?

" Well-l-l....since you asked ....

"Here in Brackettville, Texas, U.S.A, Zip code 78832, based on long, personal observation, "we" (heh, heh, heh!) are pretty doggone sure that if you were to combine all the young fellows in today's St. Mary Magdalene's Youth Group, coordinated by Janie DeHoyos and Maria Elena Molinar, + the Altar Servers, Janie and Jerry DeHoyos and Ralph Flores' mother, and the Rev. Mr. James Bader's Confirmation Classes, you'd be looking at a solid potential of 40 to 70 percent, at least, for both priestly and other religious vocations.

As for the ladies -- around a potential percentage of 30 to 50 percent for a religious vocation, minimum!"


LITTLE GREEN CLOWN FROM MARS:

"Your clergy hardly even believe in God, let alone Jesus Christ! They grovel before the Santeros; they grovel before the outright Satan worshippers!"

US:

"So what? The Greeks put us all straight over 1,000 years ago when they told us: The waters of life can flow through the jaws of a dead dog."

"En español, leemos ...En cuanto al ministro orgulloso, hay que colocarlo con el diablo...etc...pero y/o sin embargo .. etc... (Catecismo de la Iglesia Católica)."

TRANSLATION OF ALL THE ABOVE?

"The Holy Spirit has the last word, always.

"And here in Brackettville, too, the Holy Spirit will get the job done, you can just bet on it!"