The Dominican Province of St. Joseph, the province covering Northeastern United States, is welcoming in 21 new novices this year. It is the province’s largest incoming class of novices since 1966. This is pretty impressive considering the fact that the Province of St. Joseph in 1966 covered the entire East Coast (The 11 southern states formed their own province in 1980). The average entering class of novices from 1993 to 2002 was only about 5, while the average from 2003 to 2009 was about 9.
So this begs the question, why this huge jump in vocations over the past several years for the Dominicans? According to the province’s outgoing Vocations Director, in an interview with Catholic News Service, the answer is orthodoxy:
Despite efforts in other Catholic orders since the council to alter their own traditions and teachings with the aim of appealing to a younger, wider audience, for the Province of St. Joseph, “there was not a whole lot of toying or monkeying with the liturgy,” Father Garrot said, adding that he thinks some other orders have actually hurt their recruitment efforts by straying from their tradition.
“All I can hope is that we’re riding the crest of what will happen for everyone else in due time as they reclaim their tradition and settle,” he said.
So how soon until Rochester decides to “reclaim their tradition and settle”?
Tags: Orthodoxy at Work, Vocations
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U can’t fix stupid. They will persist until they are flushed away.
“Orthodoxy breeds vocations”
Well, OF COURSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unless you truly believe in the Church, her dogmas, doctrines, organization and mission NO ONE with 2 working synapses and a milli-dram of integrity plus common sense would give up sex, family, independence and, in an order, personal money to join the priesthood or a religious order. That so many Bishops, priests, sisters and brothers of the 60’s class can’t figure this out is, I fear, a damning commentary on their own arrogance that they cannot admit they took almost every wrong decision post-Vatican II that could possible be made. Otherwise we have been cursed with a preternaturally stupid host of clerics and religious from that period! Since I know too many from that time, and they are NOT stupid, I can only conclude they are incapable of admitting their abysmal failures.
What they don’t seem to understand is that good people can be social workers, nurses, teachers, doctors, preachers, administrators, etc., etc., without joining the priesthood or an order. When you look at the orders and the dissenting priests/sisters, what do you see – unhappy, disbelieving, disgruntled people living without family, sex, money or independence going through the motions of rituals they don’t really believe in.
IT IS ORTHODOXY! IT IS FAITH! that MUST under-gird vocations because without that firm belief in Christ and His Church there is no point in giving up those things that the Church demands being given up in order to be a priest or vowed religious. If the Mass is simply some sort of play-acting symbol – Why not marry? Why not have sex? Why not have your own money and independence??????????
If joining an order involves no life of communal efficacious prayer with a firm commitment to something transcendent, why not just do your good works serving the poor, educating the young, healing and comforting the sick – and still have a family, sex, money, etc?!
It is being part of the Church – committing your life to the Spotless Bride of Christ, committing to the immanent Jesus present here sacramentaly and spiritually, serving a cause higher than just the good deeds we are all called to do – that provides the impetus and perseverance to give up those things the Church asks its priests and religious to give up.
Without orthodoxy no one will join because there is no reason to join.