Sydney’s younger priests are likely to have come from families where daily Mass, nightly praying of the Rosary, and reading the lives of the saints were common, a recent survey has confirmed. Source: The Catholic Weekly.
The report, based on a survey of 13 priests and six in-depth interviews, found while not all came from a Catholic or Mass-going family, a background of intense family devotion – even if they later drifted away from regular practice for a period – was the biggest factor in the vocational journey of men ordained for the archdiocese in the past 10 years.
That was surprising for researcher Stephen Bullivant of the University of Notre Dame, Sydney.
“The importance of childhood religious practice in laying the groundwork for future vocations is well known, but I was struck by how many of the men reported what would count as very high levels of religiosity, even among most practising families,” Professor Bullivant said.
“What really struck me during the project was just how much fostering vocations is a long game.
“No matter how good a vocations team are, you need that pipeline leading back to loving, committed Catholic families of 15, 20, 25, 30 years ago to have something to work with.”
Foundations were laid for future priestly vocations in the home, schools, parishes and university chaplaincies, the survey showed.
Love of the Blessed Sacrament came through strongly and several responses stressed Eucharistic adoration or reverent liturgies as being a catalyst for their vocations.
The late Cardinal George Pell and Sydney’s World Youth Day in 2008 also heavily influenced the younger generation of priests, Professor Bullivant explained.
He recommended parishes foster a culture of devotion to the Eucharist and find ways to bring committed young Catholics together, if they wanted to support religious vocations.
“As being religious, and especially being seriously religious in this kind of way, becomes seen as weirder in the wider culture, it helps enormously to belong to a subculture that normalises it to some extent,” Professor Bullivant said.
FULL STORY
Survey shows family devotion biggest factor in new vocations (By Marilyn Rodrigues, The Catholic Weekly)
