New strategy to tackle vocations crisis

The Chairman of the Bishops’ Council for Religious has announced plans for a new National Office for Vocation to address the growing crisis of calls to the priesthood and religious life in Ireland.

In an address to the Irish Vocations Directors’ Conference in Maynooth last week, Bishop Denis Brennan said the shortage of candidates coming forward is “one of the biggest challenges facing the Irish Church at the moment”. “In 1965, 441 priests were ordained in Ireland; at the present time it is usually 12 to 13 annually,” he told the conference, which included the secretary for seminaries at the Congregation for Clergy, Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong.

Examining the reasons for the decline in numbers, the bishop said it was a combination of the changing cultural landscape of Ireland and the scandals that have “poisoned the well”. He warned that the sharp fall in numbers had “huge implications for the future shape of ministry” but encouraged Catholics not to give up hope: “We work, hope and pray for a new outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit.”

Margaret Cartwright, director of Vocations Ireland, welcomed the announcement, saying that a “more unified approach” was required. She told The Tablet that the new vocations office would develop a national strategy for vocations, which she said didn’t currently exist. “There’s a crisis in vocations but there’s a crisis in calling as well,” she said, “and we’re not inviting people to see this as an option, so we’re really looking at that.” One of the strategies to promote religious life has been pop-up cafes where young people can hear the stories of the lives of religious, which, she added, had been successful. “In the past when religious had big schools and big hospitals there was the opportunity to meet and to hear. We don’t have those opportunities as much today,” she said.

Bishop Brennan said the new National Office for Vocation aims to build a culture of vocation in the Church in Ireland, where vocations to the priesthood are talked about, prayed for and encouraged; the call to diocesan priesthood is promoted; and diocesan initiatives are co-ordinated and animated.