The Vatican has issued new guidelines for the recruitment of seminarians with the aim of increasing vocations to the priesthood. I thought the reasons for the decline in vocations was worth noting:

• having parents who have different hopes for their child’s future;
• living in a society that marginalizes priests and considers them irrelevant;
• misunderstanding the gift of celibacy;
• being disillusioned by the scandal of priests who abused minors;
• and seeing priests who are too overwhelmed by their pastoral duties to the detriment of their spiritual life

The solution as every one knows lies within the family. Children need to be taught to pray and to see the priesthood as a gift. Obviously, too, involvement in good, solid, orthodox activities for boys are important – altar serving, good Catholic schooling, solid CCD, charity work, introduction to good priests and religious men and women.

For more information, see the Catholic News Service.