'vocations to the priesthood have been falling in Buenos Aires on his watch, despite the fact they’re up in some other dioceses. Last year the archdiocese ordained just 12 new priests, as opposed to 40-50 per year when Bergoglio took over.'Mr. Allen reported goes on to describe the then-Archbishop's missionary vision, including that
'Perhaps the signature pastoral innovation associated with the Bergoglio years is his emphasis on putting priests into the slums and shantytowns of Buenos Aires'.But before you can put priests anywhere, there first have to be priests.
Rocco Palma does note at Whispers in the Loggia,
'it is indeed conspicuous that Papa Bergoglio's first American personnel moves – more than any other aspect of a pontificate, the place where the rubber hits the road – have both gone to priests of [the Diocese of] Lincoln',Specifically, he appointed Bishop Michael Jackels of Wichita Archbishop of Dubuque, and Msgr. John Folda, rector of Lincoln's St. Gregory the Great Seminary, as Bishop of Fargo.
'In any event, as Francis' identikit for nominees begins to emerge, both appointments reflect a premium on picks who've yielded impressive, concrete results.Around my parish and archdiocese I've often heard that better results elsewhere are solely due to unique circumstances and so we ought not reconsider our current approach even as things deteriorate. We'll see if Pope Francis has empathy or impatience with that outlook.'On that front, Jackels' Wichita has set a national high-watermark both in priestly vocations and a stewardship-based Catholic school system believed to be the US' lone outfit that (get this) doesn't charge tuition to active parishioners, while the Lincoln seminary – whose fairly recent establishment [1998] bucked the prevailing trend – has served as the engine behind the building of a formation group numbering over 40 men, a figure barely equaled even by most of the largest local churches on these shores.'
"Around my parish and archdiocese I've often heard that better results elsewhere are solely due to unique circumstances and so we ought not reconsider our current approach even as things deteriorate. "
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me like if we compare things to how they were say around year 2000, in some areas, (vocations, seminary, pro-life, campus ministries) the archdiocese has changed approaches and emphasis and reconsidered things based on more successful approaches elsewhere and this is showing some good results.
On vocations and seminary, the seminary had been down to all but empty, so I agree even a handful of ordinations a year is encouraging. Still, it won't keep more than about half our parishes open under the current plan.
ReplyDeleteOn pro-life, seems we're a long way from the days when "The archdiocesan director of the Repect Life Office resigned, saying she could no longer 'perpetuate the myth' that the archdiocese was committed to anti-abortion efforts." The Education of an Archbishop: Travels with Rembert Weakland by Paul Wilkes (1992) p. 53.
Campus ministries, I'll take your word for improvement.
But I'm not hearing reports of turnarounds in membership, attendance at Mass, or participation in the sacraments at this or that parish. And so I'm not hearing that our Archdiocese is holding up any such successes as best practices to emulate.
I cited reports of dioceses with exceptional results. But I'm not seeing these reports in our archdiocesan newspaper, nor any expressions of interest in them from our Archbishops post-Weakland.