Word: priesthoods
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...incident points up a situation that is increasingly worrying to the Roman Catholic Church in Italy-the threadbare poverty of the priesthood. Many a country priest begs for his staples, and depends on the traditional Sunday dinner with a parishioner for his one decent meal of the week. Doing the pastor's laundry is a well-established parish chore. Priests in the south have been known to sleep in their churches for lack of lodgings, and some even make ends meet by operating movie halls or cafés as a sideline. In modern Italy, the priest...
...best to persuade the Italian government to increase its annual subsidy to needy clergymen (currently from $500 to $2,700 annually, according to rank) and to set up hospitalization and social security benefits for all priests. The effort is not merely humanitarian. The number of new recruits to the priesthood has been falling off in Italy at an alarming rate. Milan, the richest, largest archdiocese in Europe, documents the decline. In 1860 Milan had 1,168,063 Catholics and 2,470 priests, or one priest for every 473 souls. Last year there were 2,235 priests and the population...
...Live. Some observers blame the decline in vocations to the priesthood on the rise in vocations to the so-called secular institutes-religious organizations such as Opus Dei, in which men and women may take vows of obedience (but rarely poverty or chastity) and go on living in the world. Since the late Pope Pius XII recognized their validity in 1947. secular institutes have mushroomed in Italy: from 1949 to 1958, more than 250 applied to the Vatican for formal recognition. "There is no doubt.'' said a Vatican prelate last week, "that these organizations have attracted many...
...called to the priesthood in their middle age or later have a rough scholastic row to hoe: a six-year course in competition with young men already in the swing of studying. Only one Roman Catholic seminary specializes in training older men-Rome's Beda College, which last year graduated 14 men (one American) at an average age of 46. Beda recently announced that it could no longer accept Americans because of overcrowding, and last week Boston's Richard Cardinal Gushing announced that the second such seminary would be built in his archdiocese...
...called St. Pius X Belated Vocation Seminary,* it will occupy a 145-acre tract in Marlboro, 28 miles from Boston. It will train men mostly in their 405 and 503 who have college degrees and experience in law, medicine and teaching. Candidates for the priesthood will be accepted from all over the world, and Cardinal Gushing hazards no guesses as to their numbers, though an estimated one in 50 priests has a "delayed vocation." Among notable examples: Cardinals Newman (45) and Manning (42). No upper age limit will be set at the new seminaries. Says Cardinal Gushing: "The response...