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Cardinal Marx’ Seminary Received Only One New Seminarian in 2016

On 18 March, Cardinal Reinhard Marx — Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising and President of the German Bishops’ Conference — spoke at a diocesan meeting and revealed a stunning fact. In the year of 2016, only one new seminarian entered the diocesan seminary of Munich. According to the Austrian Catholic website Kath.net, moreover, Cardinal Marx rejected the idea of forming larger parish communities in order to meet the varied needs of the dispersed faithful. The Austrian report continues, by summing up Marx’s own words:

It is about a “visibility in place.” However, this has to be organized according to the current given conditions — the discussion about the conditions for admittance to the priesthood, for example concerning the viri probati [proven married men who could become ordained priests] will continue. Marx said that, in the last year [2016], only one new candidate entered the Priestly Seminary of the Archdiocese.

Cardinal Marx here reveals the fact of a serious pastoral situation: the growing lack of priests in Munich. But importantly he himself relates this fact in connection with a discussion about the viri probati, something he had somewhat shyly refused to do at the end of the recent 6-9 March spring General Assembly of the German Bishops in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany.

As OnePeterFive then reported, Cardinal Marx insisted at the final 9 March press conference of that collective episcopal meeting that Pope Francis’ own recent proposal to discuss further the viri probati solution was meant especially for “far distant places” and for “extreme situations,” not really for Germany. Marx had then even explicitly said the following, in the context of the comparative need for the viri probati:

I mean, I do not speak here about Germany, I speak here about extreme situations which are of course also in the pope’s mind and thoughts, and not necessarily our own situation in Germany where we are still pretty well equipped with clergy and collaborators, in comparison with the Universal Church. [my emphasis]

As we then also summed up his understated words:

Marx came back to mentioning [at the 9 March press conference] that it is, indeed, about “a pastoral situation which is very extreme,” and he repeated several times that “one has to think about it.” Marx does not think, however, “that this is going to be a theme for tomorrow, or for us,” adding that “there is no taboo so that one may not speak about it. That cannot be.” The cardinal added that there is “no ban on speaking” and he stated again: “He [the pope] only said: ‘We have to think about it.’ […] He did not give an answer.” [my emphasis]

As we then said: “Methinks thou dost protest too much!” This expression of doubt has now found, it seems, some stronger foundation.

Due to the proposed questions of a dear friend and colleague of mine in Rome some weeks ago, I had made some initial investigations into this matter of the current number of actual seminarians in the Munich Archdiocese, and I thus first called up the Priesterseminar München, Georgenstrasse, which is the only seminary for the Archdiocese of Munich. I was told that there are still 19 seminarians currently studying for the priesthood in the seminary, with 36 seminarians altogether, because some of the current seminarians are already variously working in the pastoral field as a final preparation for their own priestly ordination. One other seminarian is also studying for the priesthood, but not there in the Priesterseminar München. That is to say, there are altogether 37 seminarians for the whole Archdiocese of Munich — for around 1.7 million Catholics. (As a comparison, the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, has currently 49 seminarians for some 96,000 Catholics.)

When looking at the website of the Munich seminary, we note that the current seminarians are first mentioned and presented. For the first and preparatory year — called Propaedeutikum — there is the link to only one student.

In the face of such a desolating state of affairs with regard to priestly vocations, there should be two consequential aspects to be considered further.

First, that Cardinal Marx expressly mentioned in his 9 March Press Conference that Pope Francis, back in 2015, had recommended to some of the German bishops several books authored by Fritz Lobinger, the former bishop of Aliwal, South Africa. Lobinger is one of those who advocate the idea of ordaining to the sacramental priesthood certain respected elders of a community who are married and who are, in many areas of the world, also female. Thus, he has opened up the idea of a second group of ordained married priests — both male and female — who would be spiritually counselled by some regular priests who had already undergone their own regular priestly education and formation. This revolutionary alternative and purportedly practical approach now seems to be favored by Pope Francis himself, since he himself recommended Lobinger also in a 2014 conversation with the promoter of the idea of married priests, Bishop emeritus Erwin Kräutler.

The second aspect will also lead us again to a consideration of the pastoral thought of Pope Francis himself. Why does Pope Francis ask Cardinal Marx to become a select member of the Council of Nine Cardinals — established in order to counsel the pope in his pontificate — when Cardinal Marx himself is conspicuously deficient in creating in his own diocese an atmosphere and culture of the Faith and Catholic devotion which would also sufficiently foster new vocations to the priesthood? Pope Francis might better have asked, for example, someone from the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska to consult him about how to help increase the number of vocations with the help of open and sustained fidelity to the entirety of Church teaching. Moreover, this diocese has generally kept many traditional practices; it has no altar girls, has no permanent deacons, and offers Holy Mass ad orientem. It also has invited the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter to establish its seminary there. Lincoln has some of the highest vocation numbers of the U.S. It is worth studying this question by reading, for example, a 2016 interview given by Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, as published by the Catholic World Report.

Perhaps it would be helpful, both to Pope Francis and to Cardinal Marx himself, to go for an extended visit to the Diocese of Lincoln, instead of first fully discussing the progressive and novel idea of ordaining — male and female — married elders.

87 thoughts on “Cardinal Marx’ Seminary Received Only One New Seminarian in 2016”

  1. I bet Cardinal Marx is counting on an increase in seminarians as soon as he announces the opening of co-ed dorms in 2019.

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  2. Vocations crisis engendered to bring about radical changes to the Catholic Church so that she more readily resembles the Protestants and the ‘Orthodox’

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    • “I personally think the vocation “crisis” in this country is more artificial and contrived than many people realize. When dioceses and religious communities are unambiguous about ordained priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines these calls; when there is strong support for vocations, and a minimum of dissent about the male celibate priesthood and religious life loyal to the magisterium; when bishop, priests, Religious and lay people are united in vocation ministry—then there are documented increases in the numbers of candidates who respond to the call.

      “It seems to me that the vocation “crisis” is precipitated and continued by people who want to change the Church’s agenda, by people who do not support orthodox candidates loyal to the magisterial teaching of the Pope and bishops, and by people who actually discourage viable candidates from seeking priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines the ministries.

      “I am personally aware of certain vocation directors, vocation teams and evaluation boards who turn away candidates who do not support the possibility of ordaining women or who defend the Church’s teaching about artificial birth control, or who exhibit a strong piety toward certain devotions, such as the Rosary.”

      – Archbishop Elden Curtiss of Omaha, Christian Order, March 1996

      In some places, not much has changed since 1996. In other places where much has, you can find those who would like to see a return to that m.o..

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    • It used to be very effective to pray, support Catholic families in the traditional catechesis of their children and call on on God to send vocations.

      FSSP has a growing number of new, traditional seminarians. God knows where the living faith is really coming from.

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  3. If it was not so sad, true and serious one could and would give a very sarcastic laugh about the fact that the current pontiff even listens to and follows the advice and guidance of this so-called “shepherd” named Cardinal Marx. As I have posted in the past the heretic Martin Luther was more Catholic than Marx and most of his fellow German prelates.

    Maybe in Our Lord’s Will and plans Marx’s seminary only having one new seminarian is blessing because it reduces if not eliminates the spread of the heresies among future priests that Marx and his fellow heretics can infect with their errors. It maybe in God’s plans that this diseased tree and its roots and fruits die here and now rather than continue to infect many more souls with their rotten fruit.

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  4. Just as in the US Democrat Party, in the Church in Europe today incompetency and dereliction of duty is no barrier to advancement. If the Church were merely a lowly business for profit, and if the pope had even 1/10 the administrative skills shown by Donald Trump, long ago Card Marx would have heard him say, “Du bist entlassen!”

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  5. Well I do hope that one seminarian has the good sense to pack his bags and head to the FSSP seminary in Wigrazbad while he still has the Catholic Faith.

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  6. Sadly I read the article and my first thought was, how long before there will be a Vatican intervention in Lincoln, Nebraska to destroy what is happening there. Recently I’ve been reading the Ratio Fundamentalis from the Congregation of the Clergy published in the fall. The seminarian described there is one who can “discern”. That’s fine but on the basis of what? Revealed truth? Much is good in the document but there’s a lot of slippery ambiguous stuff also. Just the kind of thing to justify an intervention in the Lincoln diocese or the FSSP seminary in Denton. I’m disturbed with myself that I’ve become so suspicious of Rome over these past four years!

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    • Most of us who have consigned the blinders to the wastebasket endure self recrimination. This is not our fault. It is the fault of those who would reconfigure the Bride of Christ according to their own narcissism.
      I look back over the past fifty-five years and wonder where was the virile intervention that was required and could have saved us from this day. The gentle hand was employed to save the reputation of a Church which had swallowed the erroneous contrivance of the “spirit of the council.” It was employed I believe in good faith to avoid schism.
      It was a tragically flawed stratagem.
      Time to put the pride aside and speak the truth.
      We let ourselves be had by the first generation of the nefarious spawn we now endure.
      Speak up. Speak the truth. Do not endure the erroneous lash of a call to obedience in the service of apostasy.

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      • James, I became aware of the enormous problems the Church now (openly and publicly) faces 31 years ago in the seminary. It was a big shock for me and my fellow orthodox/traditional seminarians – for we were told that everything we had been taught about the Church was now somehow awfully wrong. We resisted and were treated shamefully.

        After we left the seminary (there was no way we would continue) I spoke up loud and clear (I was even featured in an article in the local Catholic newspaper). That was when I received a second shock. Only my immediate family (and close Catholic friends) believed me – the rest of them shook their heads and refused to believe my account of what had happened.

        Today, I would estimate that only 10% of those who currently attend my local NO parish (which is growing only because of the big population growth in my city satellite town) are either aware of the problems in Rome – or actually wish to be aware. The majority either don’t know – or do not WISH to know.

        This is a huge problem to overcome – and I’d venture to say that only some kind of severe shake-up is going to wake them up and get them to face the truth.

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        • I’m the generation before you. The first V2 reality sandwich force-fed to me in the wake of “the council” was a newly ordained religion instructor of my sophomore year referencing a devotion – it might have been the rosary – “pious nonsense.”
          The old church was dead, the new and improved model was at hand. Nine years of conscientious catechesis bit the dust. How fortunate I was to have them tucked into my consciousness. God knows where I’d be today were it not for that buried treasure that would quietly sustain me until I recovered in my forties.
          Years back I attempted to live out the vocation of my youth in middle age. My formation as a Trappist was aborted on the eve of simple vows by an abbot who gloried in being referenced by his confreres at the triennial General Chapter as a “left wing brat.” Upon getting wind [ear to door] that I was disappointed by the duplicitous and rude reception a JP II curial Cardinal was offered during a short visit to our monastery the hammer fell on me. I’m afraid I am somewhat sensitive to the fascist tactics of the open minded left.
          A commenter at another site said — “Pope Francis, not unlike a great number of vocation directors, thinks that orthodoxy is a mental illness.” Unfortunately those of Francis’ perspective are legion. If candidates do not match up to the ideological perspective of the vocation director, novice master or superior it is “be gone.”
          The Bergoglian pontificate manifests what many of us have known for a long time. Certain individuals believe the Church is their oyster and the rest of us can get lost. They will stop at nothing to wrestle the façade, the pedigree, the treasure of the Church to their purpose. They come in all vesture, all rank. Their exhortation to a blind obedience to their ideology, their claim to superior insight, their adoption of new forms of “virtue” (ah, the “open mind”) are their mark. We need recognize and reject vigorously the reptilian subterfuge.
          Their interior disposition is often concealed, their lives a masquerade, the depth of their aberrance from the Truth of the Gospel, the Roman Catholic faith, unfathomable to most laity. Vindictive, retaliatory, all under the guise of pastoral, charity, psychological discernment. Life in the heterodox kirche is akin to life in the Soviet Union. Snooping, sneaking, backstabbing. It is particularly rife within religious communities.
          Where are all the priests? Many who should be imparting their apostolate attempted a virile effort but are now found piled along the edges of the path — clerical, monastic road kill — peppering the uncatechized laity.

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          • Thanks for your reply James – you said it all, very well indeed. I don’t have to imagine what you went through when the abbot blocked your vocation – I’ve been there – and indeed, it was a fairly dreadful experience.

            My faith took a hit for a short while, but being of strong disposition (and with a very strong orthodox Catholic family behind me) I came through and I did not give up on The Faith, nor do I plan to give up – EVER. I turned to study my Catholic Faith more deeply than ever before and discovered a wonderful depository of De Fide doctrine and dogma – like I’d discovered a chest full of jewels beyond compare.

            Right now, please pray for a young seminarian (a relative of the family) who is presently going through what you and I went through all those years ago.

            Thanks James.

          • This is all Satan at work. The Holy Rosary (per Padre Pio) is the most powerful weapon in the universe. I try to say 15 decades every day, and I urge all Catholics to NEVER neglect their daily Rosary and to try to pray more than one a day if they are able. Our Lady will triumph. The jokers in the church will not prevail.

      • Briefly, what is needed is an Antireformation. Like the renewal of the Church after the Protestant disasters in 15 and 16 centuries. I’m I correct?

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        • The term “renewal” was commandeered by the fraudulence of Vatican II – such as “relevant,” “in the spirit of,” “experiment,” “modified” – the litany is endless, and every one of them make my skin crawl. The
          maggotry in play toys words to its own advantage. The sanctimonious and superior intellects who feign pastoral leadership are deceptive that they hijack our very vocabulary.
          Our shared hope for the future has been described by some as a “restoration.” I like that. Another would be “reconstruction.” But maybe the most accurate and with the most gravity would be “conversion.” “Turning around” once again to Jesus Christ and abandoning the clerical sandbox, where we once again attempt to comport ourselves as mindful adult Roman Catholic Christians in a post-Bergoglian world.
          Yes, COVERSION is what is required.

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    • “I’m disturbed with myself that I’ve become so suspicious of Rome over these past four years!”

      You condemn yourself, very sadly, Reverend Father, with these words. Many of us laity have been suspicious of Rome for several decades already. Why were you not suspicious five years ago or more?

      A nest of vicious vipers is what we have in Rome. And precious few of them Catholics.

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    • Don’t be disturbed with yourself – there is a reason you’re suspicious, & whether correct or incorrect its better to care deeply

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    • Four years? More than 50 years of a concerted, planned attack on our Holy Catholic faith and our Holy Catholic Church.

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  7. Pope Francis might better have asked, for example, someone from the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska to consult him about how to help increase the number of vocations with the help of open and sustained fidelity to the entirety of Church teaching.

    But these are *not* the sort of priests that are desired, you know. “Rigid young monsters” and all that.

    If the choice is between that and a microscopic priesthood, those in power in Rome (and Munich) now would prefer the microscopic priesthood. Besides, it opens up more opportunities for laity. I mean, until you run out of them, too.

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  8. It has become difficult to take the Church seriously anymore.
    Female priests on the horizon?, married priests, deacons galore, homosexual priests, same sex attracted priests, girl altar servers, Eucharistic Ministers garnished in white robes touching our Lord with their unconsecrated hands, clapping at Mass, talking before and after Mass, priests who enjoy adulation from their crowds at Mass, etc., etc…..

    Glad things are just fine and dandy in Lincoln Nebraska. But, what about the rest of us faithful who live in the world,, in Cleveland, Ohio, in L.A., and the many European countries, etc.?
    Yes, I know, we all like to point to the one or two shining stars of seminaries…..FSSP, ICSK, but what about
    the diocesan parish priest who is vital, so needed? Where is he to go? Why can’t a young man serve his community in his own diocese?

    Such a shame, that vocations will begin to look more like the junk that was filled in them back in the 70s and 80s. Good young men ain’t gonna hide anymore in these infested filled seminaries, like they did in the old days. ( which in my opinion, I could never had done).
    They simply will avoid them at all cost, so as to preserve their own soul.

    I would love to ask Francis and Benedict and JP ll, if I could, this one question:
    ” Do you believe in the Real Presence and that the Church IS the True Church?’
    Please tell me, because your pontificates did little to promote that. You all were great on the world market, but missed the mark in promoting the Traditional/True faith.

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    • Pointing question! I wouldn’t be too cynical if I would expect the answer won’t come. But on another note: not only in Europe but in Australia we see more young devoted priests from Poland from Africa and from the Philippines. They do missionary work in the deserts of postmodern Western world. And – this may surprise many – also many priests and monks/religious from Indonesia. All these bring other issues (cultural, language gaps; acceptance by parishioners mainly at the initial stage is also an issue) but it is still much better than nothing. God bless us!

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      • We need missionary work in the pews of many of our own dioceses.
        I am tired, truly tired, of the forgotten parishioners of the Western world. The Church has forgotten US! The everyday, hard working, struggling man, woman, and child in cities and countrysides of Western Europe and the North America has been left without the zeal of the traditional priest.
        i am sorry, and I am not minimizing all this missionary work in far off places of the world, but let me ask this question: Is it too boring to become a faithful and holy priest in one’s geographical area? Is it not glamorous enough to bring Christ and the faith locally, to go to the ends of the earth, while your very own region suffers from poor and heretical catechesis?

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        • It is these former colonies which are now sending back – to the former colonial powers – these missionaries! In next door Parish they have a Philippino priest, another neighbor Parish has a priest from Kerala,. South India…and there are many examples like that. It has nothing to do with glamor…they have to give up their life style to go to “dry and sad” Australia (their testimony!) to serve Christ!

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    • Funny you should mention Cleveland, Ohio. I barely survived seminary there – I have the wounds to prove it. Many of my friends were persecuted right out of the place, for offenses like regularly saying the rosary (“that’s the religion of old women, it has no place here”) or an interest in Latin, or preferring traditional hymns and chants over Glory and Praise vols. 1 and 2, which was force-fed to us 3x a day. When I go back to visit, the catholicism I witness in my original home parish is nearly unrecognizable. Apparently, the horror the aristocracy hierarchy once felt for introducing “novelties” into the Liturgy and praxis of the people is no longer present.

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      • Yes, I mention Cleveland, Ohio, for I live in this diocese and by the grace of God, recognized, along with my husband, that this seminary remains tainted, and we alerted a family member to this, as he witnessed himself, not too long ago when visiting the seminary.

        The novelties still exist in many, many parishes. Gay and Lesbian Ministry is found on their website, with a rainbow colored Dove representing the Holy Spirit.

        I shall not say more on this, for there are some truly holy priests who remain under the radar, and I pray for them every day.

        God bless you and your former fellow seminarians. I am so sorry for your experience and theirs.
        I don’t know what else to say. God was watching over you all, and protected you, I am certain.
        It gives me great pain to hear stories such as yours. Such goodness could not find a home in Christ’s priesthood!!! I am hope you are well. And BTW, as I told my loved one who is now considering seminary; ” You cannot hide your light under a bushel. Better to be persecuted than to HIDE under the dark.”

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        • It pains me to say it, but I believe you did well to warn your family member. There was a significant homosexual group in the seminaries in my day – significant, I say, because of its size – and I doubt that has changed. Once the priesthood begins to be presented as a viable option to “fly under the radar” to young men with same sex attractions, and it is not only not discouraged but finds reinforcement in the seminary structures, this sort of thing seems to perpetuate itself.

          But on the other hand, I believe it’s the responsibility of every Catholic to help foster vocations. It may not be possible for your loved one to respond to the call within the diocese of Cleveland – in fact, it might be imprudent or even dangerous to his vocation to do so – but there are many other seminaries in other dioceses, not to mention religious orders, in which he might respond fully and safely. It might not be easy, it might not be convenient – he might not be able to pop home on weekends – but no one ever made a guarantee that following the Lord would be easy.

          Thank your for your kind thoughts, and let us pray for one another!

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          • It was our duty to protect him. And let me ask you, what is the duty of the CHURCH to foster vocations? Please tell me. Why is that parents are always on the hook for fallen vocations? Seriously now. The Church needs to look in the mirror and stop blaming parents who do not foster vocations.

            I have already come to terms that he will not be close to home, and I much prefer that situation, than for him to possibly and more likely become a fallen priest should he reside here in this diocese. If he is to be a priest for Christ, that is first duty, and he must go where he can be the best for priest Christ and those in his care.

            God bless you as well. I am really getting weary and more becoming more alarmed at the pope’s, out of character, love fest with the SSPX. Something is not right here, and I do not know what to make of it, but I fear the orthodox orders may eventually be at peril as well. I trust the Holy Spirit, but not Pope Francis.

          • If I may add, your battle scars that you endured were for Christ.
            Why else would you have endured them?
            So many young men in the same position as you, I know.
            You stood for Christ , as they did, and may God justly reward you and all of them as well.

  9. Christ alone makes the call to the heart of a man.
    The “crisis” will not be remedied as long as is understood in terms of numbers. It is a crisis of inadequate fidelity to Christ, His Gospel and the perennial Magisterium of the Church.
    The Catholic Church does not have a vocation crisis.
    It does not have a staffing problem.
    It has a faith crisis which is eminently manifest in Munich and wherever the heterodox reign.
    Faith abandoned, reason absent without leave.
    The Pope and his colleagues do not grasp this because they are the poster boys of the problem. That is the best diagnosis. More likely the problem is manufactured as a means to advance an agenda which suits their ideology.
    Roman Catholicism recreated in the image and likeness of Jorge Bergoglio, Reinhold Marx and their ilk. That is the problem.
    It has been manifest for fifty years wherever this element has held sway. It is the way they want it. Psychological screening, which can have its place when employed with integrity, has been frequently employed to weed out those deemed theologically untenable.
    We are being rustled by the mendacious.

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  10. “Why does Pope Francis ask Cardinal Marx to become a select member of the Council of Nine Cardinals — established in order to counsel the pope in his pontificate — when Cardinal Marx himself is conspicuously deficient in creating in his own diocese an atmosphere and culture of the Faith and Catholic devotion which would also sufficiently foster new vocations to the priesthood?”

    Mrs Hickson, i hope that you won’t mind if I paraphrase your question in the following way:

    “Why did the Conclave of Cardinals ask Cardinal Bergoglio to become Pope — — when Cardinal Bergoglio himself is conspicuously deficient in creating in his own diocese an atmosphere and culture of the Faith and Catholic devotion which would also sufficiently foster new vocations to the priesthood?”

    And the answer to both questions is: birds of a feather flock together…

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  11. “By their fruits you shall know them…”

    The counter of example of Lincoln Nebraska I’ve always found very helpful in conversations with other Catholics about this issue. Most Catholics seem to view the priest shortage as a given fact about the Church, rather than a symptom of a deeper problem: namely the hatred of tradition in the Church. I recently made a YouTube video trying to explain all of this: youtube.com/watch?v=VZfexd9N-S4

    Another thought I more recently had on the matter is that allowing more married clergy is also assumed to be an actual solution (even if not preferable). I haven’t looked at the stats for the Anglicans lately, but once you take out their women priests, you are still left with very few men, married or otherwise, willing to give their life to the Church.

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    • Your insight is critical and it is never brought to bear on this topic.
      One need only observe the dearth of men in mainline protestant denominations seeking to serve in ministry. They really just aren’t there. The Episcopal Church in the United States has a bit of a problem in that they have more ministers than they require, not because of a flood of male vocations, but due to the collapse of congregations and the flourishing crop of lesbians adopting the ministry – thought now without a “worship space” in which to deposit them. The situation is not much different in other denominations.
      Again, it is a lack of faith. Classic mainline protestantism has metamorphosized into a post-Christian zeitgeist cult, as was inevitable from its roots.
      The Bergoglian/Marx vision is plainly before us. They exhort us to jump into a pool of sewage.

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  12. Why would an Archdiocese in Germany want to look at Lincoln NE when the Archdiocese of Omaha NE doesn’t even seem to want to. I live in the Archdiocese of Omaha (only a few miles from the Lincoln diocese) and there are currently meetings going on about how to reconfigure parishes so that the dwindling number of priests can try to service them. A friend of mine is on a committee discussing this matter and I told him to recommend looking at the Lincoln diocese as an example of what to do to increase vocations. We’ll see what happens, but I’m not holding my breath. As an interesting side note, I was talking to my crop insurance adjuster last summer, who is Catholic and in the Lincoln diocese, and the topic of abstaining from meat on Fridays came up. I told him that even though the restriction on abstaining from meat outside of Lent was lifted, we are still obliged to make some kind of sacrifice on Fridays anyway. To my surprise he said that his family still doesn’t eat meat on Fridays. Maybe this is why things are going better in the Lincoln diocese.

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    • How many circuit parties do you have? I went to school with several guys that went to seminary and left due to the undo influence of homosexuals.

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          • Well Mr. Engineer, I don’t know exactly what you’re talking about. Maybe I’m naive, but I’ve never heard of a circuit party, nor have I ever had one. I assume it has something to do with homosexuality, and I agree that this is a huge problem plaguing our seminaries.

  13. End of mandatory celibacy is the goal.
    (More accurately, it is to get the Church to reject God’s gift to her, which is, some embracing continency for the sake of the Kingdom in imitation of His Christ)

    When Pope Francis says, ‘But voluntary celibacy is not a solution.’http://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2017/03/08/pope-francis-discusses-ordination-married-men-response-priest-shortage
    One would do well to read Patterns of Change: Cardinal Marx’ Revealing Words about Pope Francis and Married Priests by Dr. Hickson | 1P5 – https://onepeterfive.wpengine.com/patterns-change-cardinal-marx-revealing-words-pope-francis-married-priests/
    to be versed in the Pope’s M.O.

    It appears that as regards this issue, it is the continuation of ‘the Rhine flowing into the Tiber’. Cf. Start > Themen > Erzbistum Köln > Der Brief der Priester des Weihejahrgangs 1967 im Wortlaut [a Dr. Hickson’s translation would certainly be beneficial] – https://www.domradio.de/themen/erzbistum-koeln/2017-01-10/der-brief-der-priester-des-weihejahrgangs-1967-im-wortlaut cf. German priests: open the priesthood to women, make priestly celibacy voluntaryhttps://www.ncronline.org/blogs/german-priests-open-priesthood-women-make-priestly-celibacy-voluntary

    When one then sees all the drumbeats clamoring out in concert in the MSM (e.g. Pope Francis suggests an openness to ordaining married men as priestshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/03/10/pope-francis-suggests-an-openness-to-ordaining-married-men-as-priests/?utm_term=.59bb0105e339 and Fewer and lonelier: Why the celibate priesthood is in crisis | The Economist, the Beast’s Magazine – http://www.economist.com/blogs/erasmus/2017/01/fewer-and-lonelier ) and from renegade, supposed Catholic (e.g. Pope Francis signals openness to ordaining married menhttps://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/03/08/pope-francis-signals-openness-ordaining-married-men/ and Next Synod of Bishops to focus on youth and vocationshttps://cruxnow.com/vatican/2016/10/06/next-synod-bishops-focus-youth-vocations/ and Next synod likely to focus on ordaining married menhttps://cruxnow.com/analysis/2016/08/12/next-synod-likely-focus-ordaining-married-men/ and Now is the time for married priests | NCReporterhttps://www.ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/now-time-married-priests ), it is clear what the enemies of the Church want to do to her and that the latest papal interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit is no coincidence.

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  14. Why am I no surprised? Wherever leftists run a diocese self-destruction inevitably follows. In the meantime, the leftist hierarchs continue on in their collective denial, believing they are the future and renewing the Church “according to Vatican II”. Soon enough you will be seeing similar disastrous seminarian numbers in San Diego (Bp McElroy), Chicago (Card. Cupich), Brussels (Card. de Kesel) and Parramatta (Bp Long) – all Pope Francis’ select appointments. Heresy begets auto-demolition. Only in much maligned so-called ‘conservative dioceses’ will vocations continue in good numbers, for only within them is the faith taught and practiced with any real semblance of authenticity. May these evil days be shortened!

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  15. 1. Break something in the name of improvement
    2. Get people to agree that the situation is even more broken and needs “improvement”
    3. Goto Step 1.

    I don’t understand why this scam is being pulled of so easily. There is clear, tested evidence of what does and doesn’t work.Yet we keep doing what isn’t working, and then use the results to justify more of what isn’t working.

    It’s like they hate science or something. They refuse to consider empirical evidence.

    Reply
    • 1) For them, why change a winning formula?

      2) For us who do not see, that’s the definition of insanity, i.e., doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

      ***

      PS You go it right. The enemy and the innovators create the problem in the first place and then they offer the solution (ordo ab chao) e.g. infiltrate the Church with homosexual priests, precipitate the sexual abuse crisis and their solutions are that the Church accept homosexuality, ordain homosexuals, get rid of celibacy, etc.

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  16. No great surprise that the Munich seminary is almost empty. Rather like the magnificent but almost empty church in that city’s University district where I went to Mass a few years ago. Cardinal Marx can console himself that he is one up on some English dioceses who have zero new vocations in several years. Fortunately for many senior clergy, they are not rewarded by results, or they would be emptying the trash cans behind their cathedrals.

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  17. “Collaborators”, as in traitors? If Marx wanted numbers, he has the church taxes to pay them to fill the seminary, so he must want something else, especially if the shortage doesn’t make him saddened.

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  18. Then in the dear Cardinal’s opinion, it is obvious that the priestly celibate is a requirement that should be given up forever, a thing belonging to an obsolete past.
    The Chuch must ordain married men and women, and possibly even homosexual and transgendered people.

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  19. In many Catholic colleges and seminaries these days, they rationalize such hard statistics by saying this is a “fruit of the renewal” launched by Vatican II, and that the Holy Spirit’s intention is “a less clericalist Church.”

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  20. It looks like the FSSP is more attractive to seminarians. I know there’s about 100 seminarians at the Nebraska seminary and many more at the German FSSP seminary as well.

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  21. The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, or FSSP, celebrates only the Extraordinary form of the Mass and they have 80+ seminarians!

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  22. Its part of the modernist plan. No Preist, get women, homosexuals, married people. It fits well in the plan of Marx and the Pope.

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  23. The book “Goodbye Good Men” should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand this situation.
    It is my observation that those dioceses which stick to the authentic Catholic faith have no trouble filling their seminaries.

    Reply

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