Talk 3
Address to Pope John Paul II Society
Kansas City, Missouri
September 25, 1997
Most Reverend Elden F. Curtiss
Archbishop of Omaha
THE VOCATION CRISIS: REALITIES AND REMEDIES
Robert G. Kennedy, in the September 15th edition of America, writes about the perceived vocation crisis in this country in an article entitled "Will We Ever Have Enough Priests?". His conclusion is that there will never be enough priests to do everything they are expected to do -- there never have been. There are, for instance, many misconceptions about the number of seminarians today compared with 35 years ago (there are no longer high school and college seminarians in great numbers but there are in fact an increasing number of pre-theologians and theologians and a higher percentage of them persevering to ordination). There are misconceptions about the number of parishes without resident pastors today (modern transportation makes consolidation of small parishes close to each other pastorally and financially feasible). With many people helping in sacramental preparation these days, priests actually have fewer people to prepare for the sacraments than they did in the past.
But the fact is, as Kennedy points out, the gap between ordained priests and the number of baptized Catholics in this country is widening and we need to be concerned about it. I am convinced that the Lord is calling adequate numbers of candidates to priesthood and religious life today, but it takes more time, sensitivity and hard work to contact and nurture vocations than in the past. If we do not understand this, then we will either fail in vocation ministry altogether or we will not be able to surface many viable candidates.
Our culture complicates our task today -- unstable family life; divorce of half of our married couples; single parent homes; inadequate catechetical background; inadequate Mass attendance and devotions; little public piety; fewer children in the family and reluctance of parents to have their children embrace the celibate life in which there will be no grandchildren, etc., etc. There is too little support for many people being called to priesthood and religious life today. They have to be strongly encouraged by a special vocation network if they are going to be able to respond positively to the call.
Personal invitation required
All of us who have been in vocation ministry know that vocations are promoted through prayer in families, parishes and schools; through presentations and vocation awareness programs in Catholic grade schools and high schools, in religious education programs and youth groups and summer camps, and for Catholics on college and university campuses. Many of us have promoted vocations through newsletters, posters, radio and television and many other techniques. What we have learned however, is that promotion by itself is not enough. Someone personally has to invite prospective candidates to think about a vocation, and then there must be considerable follow-through.
Personal recruitment of candidates is the only way to tap the potential for vocations which exists in every diocese. This recruitment consists in the identification of candidates, initial interviews, prayer with them, dinners and discussions, and the successful completion of the application process. The vocation director has to have adequate time for follow-up meetings with these candidates in order to help them discover and become confident of the Lord's call in their lives; to interest them in the seminary and the process of discernment, formation and theological study; and to help them overcome the obstacles which might stand in their way. Vocation directors are in fact directors of recruitment for their diocese since their main task is to follow up with viable candidates who are presented to them.
Vocation directors today know that it takes much time to meet personally and frequently with all the prospective candidates who surface each year. But if these candidates do not receive adequate attention and encouragement over a period of time and with some frequency, many of them gradually drift away in other directions. Vocation directors have to develop many opportunities to visit with these candidates who have many questions and face many obstacles to their vocations. They need ongoing support, encouragement and challenge from the vocation director who must spend considerable time with each one of them.
Quality time with prospective candidates
Today it takes much more time and personal contact with prospective candidates than in the past to bring them to the point where they are ready to enter a seminary. This complicates the role of the vocation director because it takes so much of his personal time. He is not able to work with more than a thirty or forty candidates thoroughly each year, and another thirty or forty who are still on the fringe, even when he has a network of people supporting him and he has time to visit with candidates individually.
The issue, of course, is how these candidates surface in the first place to the vocation director. He relies, most of all, on his brother priests to identify qualified candidates for the seminary. They are in direct contact with young people everywhere in the diocese. They are more influential than they realize in encouraging vocations. They know and work with young people in the schools, religious education programs, youth groups, retreat experiences, campus ministry, etc. They are the ones who must point out God's call, affirm a candidates gifts, encourage him to prayer, walk with him in his struggles, and put him in contact with the diocesan vocation director. The priests of the diocese are the ones who provide the vocation director with the names of the most viable candidates for the seminary and the diocesan priesthood. If every diocesan priest would surface and work with one potential candidate at a time, there would be no vocation shortage in a diocese. In my own archdiocese, we have many priests who are personally encouraging vocations with the result that our seminarian pool is increasing steadily.
Lay support for vocations
There are also many lay people in our dioceses who have a vital interest in the vocation ministry of the Church. Serra Clubs in a diocese are particularly helpful to a vocation director. This lay group exists to promote vocations to priesthood and the religious life. They are committed to the national strategy for promoting vocations. They are willing to support vocation ministry in dioceses, in parishes, in schools, in any way they can. They support vocation programs, train vocation teams in parishes, and sponsor visits of prospective candidates to seminaries and novitiates. They provide a necessary prayer base in a diocese which is basic to vocation ministry.
Also, the Knights of the Columbus and the National Council of Catholic Women are committed to the national strategy for vocations and stand ready to help vocation directors in any way they can. We have the St. Charles Society in the Archdiocese of Omaha which consists of 700 individuals and couples who pray daily for vocations. They provide a powerful prayer base for vocations to priesthood and religious life.
Focusing vocation ministry in a diocese
A vocation director needs direction and support from his bishop to help him focus his ministry in a diocese, or he will tend to scatter his efforts and end up with unsatisfactory results. The primary task of a diocesan vocation director is to recruit vocations for the diocesan priesthood. Religious communities have to provide vocation personnel for their own institutes. The diocesan vocation director certainly needs to collaborate with religious vocation personnel within his diocese. He needs to strategize with them in finding creative ways to promote vocations to priesthood and religious life, but he is not the vocation director for these communities and his collaboration with other vocation personnel must not distract him from his primary focus which must be future priests for his diocese.
I think the most persistent problem today in vocation ministry is that too many bishops do not give vocation directors the support they need to do their jobs adequately. Not only does each diocese need a full-time priest vocation director for a Catholic population of 100,000-500,000 (and an additional full-time director for each additional 500,000 Catholics) but he needs an adequate support staff to meet and follow through personally and frequently with prospective candidates. He needs a full-time secretary and other office personnel for secretarial work, data base maintenance, copying, mailing, programming, etc. (full-time, part-time, paid and volunteer). He needs direct support from parish priests who will identify and encourage qualified prospects. Additionally, the vocation director needs a network of people who support vocation ministry in parishes, in Catholic grade schools and especially in high schools and religious education programs for public school students and on the college and university campuses.
In dioceses with less than 100,000 Catholics, a full-time vocation director may not always be possible, but even if he is not full time, he needs full-time support from many people who will help him reach prospective candidates and spend adequate time with them. If a diocese is experiencing a vocation shortage because prospect candidates are not being identified and nurtured adequately, it is imperative that the bishop release a qualified priest for full time vocation ministry as long as he is needed. When a full time vocation director has the support of his bishop and fellow priests and adequate staff to do his job, the number of candidates in a diocese increases significantly.
Adequate support for vocation directors
I am told that the high turnover rate for vocation directors in this country, and the high burn out rates, are due to unrealistic goals thrust on them without adequate staff and support structures to get the job done. I have talked with vocation directors who are disillusioned with their ministry because they cannot begin to tap the potential for vocations in their dioceses due to a lack of time and support. This is a serious problem which must be faced honestly by bishops, presbyterates and concerned laity in our dioceses.
The selection of the priest vocation director for a diocese is an important process. He needs to be healthy, balanced, disciplined and a man of the Church. He needs to be settled and happy as a priest so that he can model for the priesthood he is promoting. He needs to be totally committed to the ordained priesthood as defined by the Church. He needs to have a clear understanding with his bishop about his role as a vocation director and its limits. He needs to be honest about the requirements of his ministry and the support he requires to accomplish the goals which have been established for him.
Tapping the potential for vocations
There is a growing sense in this country among bishops, vocation personnel, priests and people that the Lord is calling candidates to priestly and religious life in sufficient numbers to meet the local church's needs. But vocations must be identified personally, one by one, and then recruited, encouraged and directed. There is a persistent frustration on the part of many vocation directors that they cannot begin to tap this potential with the current level of support and present structures. If vocation ministry is going to be a top priority in every diocese as we proclaim in our National Strategy for Vocations, then we must provide adequate numbers of vocation personnel for the Catholic population. Vocation directors must be adequately supported with paid staff and volunteers, with many priests identifying and inviting candidates, and networks of priests and religious and lay people who provide a support base for prospective candidates.
Bishops must in fact make vocation ministry a priority in their dioceses and not just talk about it. They must place their top personnel in vocation ministry, and in adequate numbers. And they must support the ministry with adequate staff and finances in order for their vocation directors to begin to tap the vocation potential in their dioceses. When priests identify viable candidates and the vocation director has time and help to work with them and prepare them for the seminary, the results are amazing.
Significant increase in seminarians
It is my personal experience in Omaha, and my observation of developments nationally, the dioceses which are surfacing proportionately large numbers of seminary candidates have a strong sense of solidarity among the bishop, priests and people. There is general agreement about the mission of the Church, about the Eucharist and the ordained priesthood. Candidates are clear about the priesthood to which they are being called and they are supported in that perception. This gives them a sense of stability and unity with their bishops and priests and the people they are called to serve. This esprit-de-corps is a major factor in their decisions to study for particular dioceses and religious communities, and it seems a major factor in their perseverance to ordination. They need to know they are welcomed and wanted in a diocese and that their discernment of the call to priesthood as defined by the Church will be accepted and supported by the bishop, priests and people of their diocese.
I am personally convinced that most prospective candidates to priesthood and religious life today are loyal to the teaching of the Church regarding ordained priesthood and vowed religious life. They want to be supported in their vocations and not coerced into accepting theological opinions about ministry which the Church does not accept. This is the reason they will be attracted in increasing numbers to dioceses and religious communities which support their call to priesthood and religious life as the Church defines these vocations. Uncertainty about ministry discourages vocations.
At the same time, dioceses and religious communities need to screen candidates carefully to make sure they are faith-filled, healthy and balanced. People who have not faced their dark side or come to terms with their sexuality are dangerous as celibate leaders. People who refuse to accept the renewal of the Church as mandated by Vatican Council II and the full magisterial teaching of the Church cannot be competent leaders of our people.
Seminaries need to stress spiritual, intellectual and human and pastoral development in their programs. Unless spiritual formation is a priority in our seminaries we run the risk of ordained priests who lack the holiness which is required to serve the Lord and his people faithfully for a life time. Priests must men of prayer, men of the Eucharist, men of the Church.
Concluding observations
My interest in vocation ministry began with my ordination as a priest in 1958. I have, over the years, served as a diocesan vocation director, pastor, seminary rector, and I have been a bishop since 1976. I served three years as Chairman of the Bishops' Committee for Vocations. I currently serve as episcopal advisor for Serra International, an organization of lay people worldwide dedicated to vocation ministry and I am a member on the national ad hoc committee for implementing the U.S. Bishops' National Strategy for Vocations.
I also work closely in the Omaha Archdiocese with our vocation director and our priests and religious, our archdiocesan Lay Committee on Vocations and our Serra Clubs in promoting vocations to priesthood and religious life. We have less than 250,000 registered Catholics. I ordained eight priests for the archdiocese in June 1996 and seven in June 1997. We had sixteen new candidates enter the seminary in September of 1996 and we had fifteen enter this year. The prospects for coming years are just as promising. Priestly and religious vocations are present in every community in the archdiocese but it takes all of us working together to promote, identify, recruit, nurture and bring them to fruition. We will reap even a richer harvest in the years ahead.
I am convinced that any diocese which truly makes vocation ministry a top priority, by giving its vocation director the time and resources he needs to reach potential candidates, will have adequate numbers of priests in the future. There is not a shortage of people being called to priesthood and religious life -- but there is a lack in many places of adequate support structures for these vocations. There are shortages of full time vocation directors who have reasonable populations to cover and adequate resources and support systems to help them do what they need to do. We create our own shortages. The Lord is doing his part in calling sufficient numbers of priests and religious to meet our needs. We have to surface them, nurture them, and support them through a vocation ministry which is adequate to the task.
I am personally optimistic about the future. I see what can be done when an effort is made by many people in a diocese to surface vocations to the priesthood, and the consequent numbers of candidates that come forward. And when we work to recruit and train adequate numbers of permanent deacons, and many lay ministers with a variety of skills, then we will be able to take care of the needs of our people in better ways than we ever have in the past. If we move the vocation agenda at every level, priests, deacons, religious, lay ministers, then we will be able to prepare for the new millennium with confidence. There is no shortage of vocations my friends. There is only a lack of adequate personnel, time, sensitivity and hard work to contact and nurture the vocations that are out there. We can remedy the shortfalls we are experiencing in many places if we make the effort together to do something about it realistically now.
