In Dever we ordained 17 priests. And we have 2 seminaries and both are getting a lot of vocations. We just had our seminarian support drive and had 35 of the seminarians tour our parishes.
Both seminaries are like our Archbishop: orthodox, solidly and proudly so. Maybe that's the difference, eh Cardinal Mahony?
FYI, that Red Page with the portrait in the middle of it was our Archbishop Chaput.
Wait a minute, do you mean to tell me 17 men were ordained to the priesthood? Get out! A bishop who cares about the faith went found men who wanted to serve Christ and His Church? Something must be in the water...
Also you are trying to tell me that you have 35 seminarians and you ALSO did not make the following list of the diocese with the highest ratio of seminairans to Catholics????
1) Lincoln, Nebraska
2) Yakima, Washington
3) Savannah, Georgia
4) Cheyenne, Wyoming
5) Rapid City, South Dakota
6) Wichita, Kansas
7) Tulsa, Oklahoma
8) Alexandria, Louisiana
9) Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida
10) Steubenville, Ohio
11) Spokane, Washington
12) Bismarck, North Dakota.
So let me get this straight. You guys ordained 17, Newark ordained 17, Arlington is going to be at 22 by 2007... (none of which made the list of vocations-heavy diocese....)
Well I'll be dipped. Didn't Denver get the memo Catholic men don't want to be priests? What happened? I thought we were all on life support and were going to have to incardinate the women ordained at the "womynpriest powwows" I thought the last one to leave was supposed to turn out the lights! Next thing you know you will be trying to tell us that Eucharist adoration is resurging in popularity, Marian devotion and the Rosary is experiencing a renewel, and young Catholic families are homeschooling and building new schools, or reinvigorating others by taking their faith and vocation as parents seriously! Such talk!
Keep going. It is just getting started.
"That's a mighty fine looking packed seminary you've got there, Excellency!"
Yay ordinations! The next step is to figure out whether this pace is sufficient to reverse the shortage. 17 in one diocese sounds like a great number and it is, if there are fewer than 17 retirements that year in that same diocese. Every vocation is precious because it marks a singular sacrifice for Christ but it is the ratio between retirements (or should be retirements) and ordinations that is the key. You can limp along for awhile with priests who celebrate liturgies when they cannot physically stand (I've personally seen two priests do this) but eventually it becomes impossible because the old guard simply drops in their traces.
So smile and be joyous over the ordinations and the vocations. But then let's take a look at the ratios to see how far down the road to recovery we actually are.
Well just as important as how many seminarians and ordinations is how many RETIREMENTS there are going to be. Episcopal retirements that is. How things look "on the ground" now and how things will be 10 years from now really can be two different things. Today's projected numbers could lie. Then again, Tod Brown won't be a bishop forever. And God knows the OC Norbetines can't find enough room for all the vocations they are forming, right there in his backyard.
Give us two dozen more diocese with real men at the helm like Chaput and Bruskewitz and Timlin and we will see what happens. Between re-invigorating seminary programs, inviting orthodox orders into a diocese and putting a firm foot down on some of the nonsense going on, well, we have seen whole diocese turn on a dime in favor of orthodoxy.
IT isn't just who we are ordaining as priests - it is a matter of who we are consecrating as bishops.
I have a real problem with the fact that mental disorders, previous suicide attempts, convicted murderers who are released from prison and have done their legally required time and the like are excluded from the ordained priesthood, the deaconate, the religious life, and even from permission to start religious orders by socalled impedaments or defects preventing them from entering programs of formation.
Many of the above persons have experienced great pain, humiliation, and utter rejection by society and yes even from clergyman and religious and socalled pious layman who label them in their own mind as trash.
Tell me, were the Apostles effeminate boyscouts or socalled healthy professionals who did not no personal tradegy or degredation, humiliation, rejection, etc! Rather, they were at times at best the run of the mill grunt workers or those the pharasies considered sub-standard. Doubting Thomas would no doubt be excluded from the Priesthood now because he would have been characterized as severely neurotic possibly suffering from an anxiety disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder. Saint Paul would have been rejected on the grounds of War Crimes against humanity by today's standard, yet GOD did not reject him.
There are many persons of the above categories who would love to serve the Church in the Ordained Priesthood or Religious life out of love for their fellow man especially their fellow sufferers and who feel called to do such because they want to be a light in the darkness and administer sacraments on these person's behalf because they know how dark and how deep the suffering, humiliation, utter hopelessness, despair, hurt, anger, and rejection that their comrades feel.
And the exposure to humanistic, irreligious, godless treatments within the confines of prisons, psych wards, rehab centers, and even from clergy with an outmoded Fruedian existential psychologicallistic bent telling them that they cannot ever serve GOD as priests and religious because they are not fully alive or free enough to do so has only strengthened to their resolve to serve GOD and be a light in the darkness. In some cases, I have known folks who were told they should get married even when they felt very strongly the desire to become Priests. These persons who have gone through great personal trials often have the wisdom and the courage to stand up for anyting including the vows of celebacy, obediance, and poverty. They often desire greatly to do GOD's work in an above and beyond the call of duty manner. They are not some socalled neurotics, to use an outmoded word that is no longer even in use in the DSM IV manual, nor are they an un-fully human, or an unwhole type of human being.
Many if not most of the formerly incarcerated, chronically mentally ill, etc. are now extremely highly functioning even obtaining PhDs working as scientist, defense R&D research scientists and engineers, doctors, psychiatrists etc. You do not hear much about these cases, although they are numerous, because the stigma attached to their life's situation makes them keep these realities a secret.
Regarding chronic mental illness, it is time for the Fruedian existential psychologicalists to move into the 21st century. Brain scan technology and the effectiveness of psychoactive meds even without psychotherapy has shown that mental illness is not caused; by sin, not being fully human, denial of ones sexuality, but rather is a highly treatable condition of organic neurological origin. You cannot tell me that the Pope did not suffer from low energy, depression, almost catatonic states in his last years of utter physical frailty with a failing central nervous system, yet he was able to lead the Church.
There are many big strapping excons, androgenic mentally ill persons,and the like who would love to serve as Priests and brothers. I have personally met some of them.
Some might argue that the Priesthood is not a right, and this is true, but in their outmoded immature Fruedian analysis, they are rejecting many potentially great candidates for the priesthood and religious life.
Some others might argue that these are special times and thus require special candidates with special socalled virtues of emotional health and well being. Well, I say from what I have seen, several potentially good candidates I have known have arisen from the utterly mind searing pain of psychotic eposodes which resemble the drug tortures states of those who were wrongly forced in confinement to alledgedly take near lethal doses of hallucinagenic drugs such as LSD for months, and the like, in CIA led mind depatterning experiments. These people now what it is like to be Christ least ones and have a great deal of love and desire to reach out to them in Christ in a beyond the call of duty type of way.
Things were not easy in centuries past when political desenters were hung from the Cross, had there genital cut or torn off by mechanical devices, burned at the stake etc.
In short, the people I have known such as the ones I am refering to may not have done outstanding military service, or worked sucessfully in high stress jobs, although I am certain they could with medications that now often completely blur the line between mental health and mental illness. However, they did live day in and day out in a major U.S. metropolitan area that was most certainly targeted by multimegaton nuclear warheads from the former Soviet Union, some of which had the capability of reducing the human body to a cloud of ionized plasma in a miniscule fraction of a millisecond after the instant of detonation even at a distance of 4 or 5 miles from ground zero, yet they survived to be highly functioning.
It is time we through off the Fruedian Psychologicalistic Existential crap from the 1900s and which was especially strong in the 1960s and 1970s and realize that consumers of mental health services, the formerly incarcerated, and the like in many cases would make excellent Holy Priests, Brother, and Nuns.
It is quite interesting.so many people love to serve the Church in the Ordained Priesthood or Religious life out of love for their fellow man.
=====================================
maria
3? LA, as big as they are only had 3?
In Dever we ordained 17 priests. And we have 2 seminaries and both are getting a lot of vocations. We just had our seminarian support drive and had 35 of the seminarians tour our parishes.
Both seminaries are like our Archbishop: orthodox, solidly and proudly so. Maybe that's the difference, eh Cardinal Mahony?
FYI, that Red Page with the portrait in the middle of it was our Archbishop Chaput.
Posted by: DenverCatholic | Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 01:15 AM
Wait a minute, do you mean to tell me 17 men were ordained to the priesthood? Get out! A bishop who cares about the faith went found men who wanted to serve Christ and His Church? Something must be in the water...
Also you are trying to tell me that you have 35 seminarians and you ALSO did not make the following list of the diocese with the highest ratio of seminairans to Catholics????
1) Lincoln, Nebraska
2) Yakima, Washington
3) Savannah, Georgia
4) Cheyenne, Wyoming
5) Rapid City, South Dakota
6) Wichita, Kansas
7) Tulsa, Oklahoma
8) Alexandria, Louisiana
9) Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida
10) Steubenville, Ohio
11) Spokane, Washington
12) Bismarck, North Dakota.
So let me get this straight. You guys ordained 17, Newark ordained 17, Arlington is going to be at 22 by 2007... (none of which made the list of vocations-heavy diocese....)
Well I'll be dipped. Didn't Denver get the memo Catholic men don't want to be priests? What happened? I thought we were all on life support and were going to have to incardinate the women ordained at the "womynpriest powwows" I thought the last one to leave was supposed to turn out the lights! Next thing you know you will be trying to tell us that Eucharist adoration is resurging in popularity, Marian devotion and the Rosary is experiencing a renewel, and young Catholic families are homeschooling and building new schools, or reinvigorating others by taking their faith and vocation as parents seriously! Such talk!
Keep going. It is just getting started.
"That's a mighty fine looking packed seminary you've got there, Excellency!"
Posted by: A Simple Sinner | Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 02:28 AM
And your point?
Posted by: BlackOps | Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 06:28 AM
If you can't see the point, you don't want to.
Posted by: A Simple Sinner | Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 09:17 AM
These videos rock!
Was the ordination shown in the video recent? Looked like the Old Rite. I want to visit that diocese!
Posted by: Kris | Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 11:53 AM
Yay ordinations! The next step is to figure out whether this pace is sufficient to reverse the shortage. 17 in one diocese sounds like a great number and it is, if there are fewer than 17 retirements that year in that same diocese. Every vocation is precious because it marks a singular sacrifice for Christ but it is the ratio between retirements (or should be retirements) and ordinations that is the key. You can limp along for awhile with priests who celebrate liturgies when they cannot physically stand (I've personally seen two priests do this) but eventually it becomes impossible because the old guard simply drops in their traces.
So smile and be joyous over the ordinations and the vocations. But then let's take a look at the ratios to see how far down the road to recovery we actually are.
Posted by: TM Lutas | Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 02:43 PM
TM -
You have an excellent point... BUT...
Well just as important as how many seminarians and ordinations is how many RETIREMENTS there are going to be. Episcopal retirements that is. How things look "on the ground" now and how things will be 10 years from now really can be two different things. Today's projected numbers could lie. Then again, Tod Brown won't be a bishop forever. And God knows the OC Norbetines can't find enough room for all the vocations they are forming, right there in his backyard.
Give us two dozen more diocese with real men at the helm like Chaput and Bruskewitz and Timlin and we will see what happens. Between re-invigorating seminary programs, inviting orthodox orders into a diocese and putting a firm foot down on some of the nonsense going on, well, we have seen whole diocese turn on a dime in favor of orthodoxy.
IT isn't just who we are ordaining as priests - it is a matter of who we are consecrating as bishops.
Posted by: A Simple Sinner | Monday, November 27, 2006 at 08:14 PM
"IT isn't just who we are ordaining as priests - it is a matter of who we are consecrating as bishops."
St. Bruskewitz rolls off my tongue, how about yours?
Posted by: Hidden One | Saturday, January 19, 2008 at 10:44 PM
I have a real problem with the fact that mental disorders, previous suicide attempts, convicted murderers who are released from prison and have done their legally required time and the like are excluded from the ordained priesthood, the deaconate, the religious life, and even from permission to start religious orders by socalled impedaments or defects preventing them from entering programs of formation.
Many of the above persons have experienced great pain, humiliation, and utter rejection by society and yes even from clergyman and religious and socalled pious layman who label them in their own mind as trash.
Tell me, were the Apostles effeminate boyscouts or socalled healthy professionals who did not no personal tradegy or degredation, humiliation, rejection, etc! Rather, they were at times at best the run of the mill grunt workers or those the pharasies considered sub-standard. Doubting Thomas would no doubt be excluded from the Priesthood now because he would have been characterized as severely neurotic possibly suffering from an anxiety disorder or obsessive compulsive disorder. Saint Paul would have been rejected on the grounds of War Crimes against humanity by today's standard, yet GOD did not reject him.
There are many persons of the above categories who would love to serve the Church in the Ordained Priesthood or Religious life out of love for their fellow man especially their fellow sufferers and who feel called to do such because they want to be a light in the darkness and administer sacraments on these person's behalf because they know how dark and how deep the suffering, humiliation, utter hopelessness, despair, hurt, anger, and rejection that their comrades feel.
And the exposure to humanistic, irreligious, godless treatments within the confines of prisons, psych wards, rehab centers, and even from clergy with an outmoded Fruedian existential psychologicallistic bent telling them that they cannot ever serve GOD as priests and religious because they are not fully alive or free enough to do so has only strengthened to their resolve to serve GOD and be a light in the darkness. In some cases, I have known folks who were told they should get married even when they felt very strongly the desire to become Priests. These persons who have gone through great personal trials often have the wisdom and the courage to stand up for anyting including the vows of celebacy, obediance, and poverty. They often desire greatly to do GOD's work in an above and beyond the call of duty manner. They are not some socalled neurotics, to use an outmoded word that is no longer even in use in the DSM IV manual, nor are they an un-fully human, or an unwhole type of human being.
Many if not most of the formerly incarcerated, chronically mentally ill, etc. are now extremely highly functioning even obtaining PhDs working as scientist, defense R&D research scientists and engineers, doctors, psychiatrists etc. You do not hear much about these cases, although they are numerous, because the stigma attached to their life's situation makes them keep these realities a secret.
Regarding chronic mental illness, it is time for the Fruedian existential psychologicalists to move into the 21st century. Brain scan technology and the effectiveness of psychoactive meds even without psychotherapy has shown that mental illness is not caused; by sin, not being fully human, denial of ones sexuality, but rather is a highly treatable condition of organic neurological origin. You cannot tell me that the Pope did not suffer from low energy, depression, almost catatonic states in his last years of utter physical frailty with a failing central nervous system, yet he was able to lead the Church.
There are many big strapping excons, androgenic mentally ill persons,and the like who would love to serve as Priests and brothers. I have personally met some of them.
Some might argue that the Priesthood is not a right, and this is true, but in their outmoded immature Fruedian analysis, they are rejecting many potentially great candidates for the priesthood and religious life.
Some others might argue that these are special times and thus require special candidates with special socalled virtues of emotional health and well being. Well, I say from what I have seen, several potentially good candidates I have known have arisen from the utterly mind searing pain of psychotic eposodes which resemble the drug tortures states of those who were wrongly forced in confinement to alledgedly take near lethal doses of hallucinagenic drugs such as LSD for months, and the like, in CIA led mind depatterning experiments. These people now what it is like to be Christ least ones and have a great deal of love and desire to reach out to them in Christ in a beyond the call of duty type of way.
Things were not easy in centuries past when political desenters were hung from the Cross, had there genital cut or torn off by mechanical devices, burned at the stake etc.
In short, the people I have known such as the ones I am refering to may not have done outstanding military service, or worked sucessfully in high stress jobs, although I am certain they could with medications that now often completely blur the line between mental health and mental illness. However, they did live day in and day out in a major U.S. metropolitan area that was most certainly targeted by multimegaton nuclear warheads from the former Soviet Union, some of which had the capability of reducing the human body to a cloud of ionized plasma in a miniscule fraction of a millisecond after the instant of detonation even at a distance of 4 or 5 miles from ground zero, yet they survived to be highly functioning.
It is time we through off the Fruedian Psychologicalistic Existential crap from the 1900s and which was especially strong in the 1960s and 1970s and realize that consumers of mental health services, the formerly incarcerated, and the like in many cases would make excellent Holy Priests, Brother, and Nuns.
Thanks;
Jim
Posted by: James M. Essig | Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 03:18 AM
Hi...
I want to know more about you...
Jhon Parker
NorthDakotaDrugTreatment
Posted by: Minal deack | Wednesday, August 20, 2008 at 01:53 PM
It is quite interesting.so many people love to serve the Church in the Ordained Priesthood or Religious life out of love for their fellow man.
=====================================
maria
South Dakota Drug Treatment
Posted by: maria008 | Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 01:36 AM