PHILADELPHIA – Put the CD-ROM into the computer and you’re greeted by images of stained glass, heavenly music, and two video screens.
Click on the left screen, and the white-haired bishop of Trenton, N.J., appears, smiling and beckoning. "I welcome you with an open heart as you begin your journey of discernment," Bishop John M. Smith says. Click on the right screen, and you meet the Rev. Mick Lambeth, the diocese’s vocations director. He also makes a plea.
In person, Lambeth jokingly calls himself a "hound for heaven" who will walk right up to any young man in a Catholic high school jacket and ask: "Have you thought of becoming a priest?"
These are anxious times for most of the nation’s 175 Catholic dioceses, where the supply of priests has plummeted 25 percent nationwide over four decades, even as the U.S. Catholic population has swelled by 30 percent. Most are resorting to some combination of mass media, the Internet and software to woo vocations.
In the Philadelphia Archdiocese – where about 20 priests die each year, and about five new priests are ordained – priestly vocations have become a "super priority," according to the Rev. Christopher Rogers, the archdiocese’s vocations director.
This year’s drive to raise awareness "is more ambitious than anything we’ve done in a while," Rogers said last week. There are nearly 1,000 active diocesan and religious-order priests in the archdiocese. In 1990, the archdiocese had about 1,200 such priests.
On Thursday, the archdiocese placed billboards on Interstates 95 and 76 featuring a smiling young man in a Roman collar.
"Some calls are meant to be answered," they read, and invite anyone who feels called – or merely intrigued – to visit the archdiocese’s vocation Web site at www.heedthecall.org.
Their vocation website looks pretty good with lot’s of solid suggestions including Novena prayers and a set of suggested prayers for the prayers of the faithful at Mass. Combined with Eucharistic adoration and the showing of the excellent Fishers of Men video this is pretty solid. Though I think a true vocations program has to be more than a yearly event for a week, but something that needs to be emphasized continuously. The vocations director probably has the best of the ideas by pretty much encouraging any young man he meets about considering if they have a vocation to the priesthood. Advertising campaigns and billboards are fine as they go, but it is the personal encouragement by people who know them that is going to elicit a response for those who have vocations to the priestly or religious life.
4 comments
I think it is going to take more than appealing videos. We really need to resurrect the culture of the hero because that is exactly what priests are: heroes.
The primary job of the hero is to save people. This means saving people from any danger from any source — even if that means trying to save someone from themselves. The hero accomplishes this task through sacrifice. He will constantly cast aside any concern for his own well-being to do the right thing. Not the easy thing — the RIGHT thing.
The main method of heroic sacrifice is: waiting. The hero must be constantly ready. He must wait for and wait on.
He waits for trouble. Much like your mother lion, Clark Kent, or policeman; the hero remains in a position of readiness so he may counter strike at any moment. The cool thing about being a priest is that his job is to counter strike evil itself. There are a lot of jobs in this world that involve taking on evil, but none so courageously direct than that of the priest. It is such a horrifically important burden. And that is exactly what makes it so darn cool.
The hero also waits on — the poor, the afflicted, the victims of evil. What is the point of stopping bullets if you are not protecting those innocents who need your protection?
A lot of noise is made about the discipline of celibacy but the tomes of both pop culture and literature make it clear that when you marry the hero, you end the romance of adventure. Superman, Batman, Captain America and Spiderman are all unmarried (they try every now and then in comics but it totally kills the story), Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, and Aragorn are also all unmarried. This is not some logic of Catholicism imposed upon the story by force but the true nature of the universe shinning through the veil of fiction. Marriage is a different kind of adventure. The Priesthood is wild and free like a fire. But it is also focused and controlled like a lantern. Priests are a light unto the darkness.
To be a priest is to be a hero.
“The Priesthood is wild and free like a fire. But it is also focused and controlled like a lantern. Priests are a light unto the darkness.” WOW! i’ll have to commit that to memory – what a great comment! i wish vocations were more encouraged when i was growing up. more than a handful of times i felt the call, but when i voiced it not only did my family look at me strangely, but the priests & nuns of my parish didn’t have much to say, either. i keep enjoining my nieces & nephews to consider the call.
Videos and internet can’t replace prayerful discernment or one on one dialogue with vocations directors, but they can be a helpful tool. If you haven’t seen the Vocations video but out by the USCCB ( I was as suprised as you are) you should. It was produced by Grassroots films and is very powerful. you see a trailer of “Fishers of Men” and other videos they have produced at http://www.grassrootsfilms.com/
Enjoy!
Fishers of Men was a cool video except for the footage that kept inadvertently contrasting the Apostles on the Beach/shoeless fishermen with pope/royally robed fishermen…If you didn’t notice that part, watch it again. The second time I saw it, it hit me as an “Oh, nooooo”. Rather than show the Pope being hailed by crowds in that section they should have shown him reaching out to people…or taking a bullet, or absolving someone…
Why? Well, how often are you asked “How come Jesus was poor and the Pope lives in a palace?”, or “If Jesus said the last shall be first why are the bishops treated like kings?” ETC.