New problems of recruiting for Church

by GREGORY LOMAX
NO situation within the Church today has aroused more anxiety, more worry and more putative solutions than the falling number of vocations. if the Church is in a state of flux, the most radical change is in our concept of a vocation.
Because every amateur theologian has his or her own solution to the declining numbers of vocations we have lost sight of the problem — if problem it be — and !become engrossed either in hysterical fear that the priesthood is a dying race or taken refuge in a complacency which ignores figures.
Very few facts are known about the vocations situation, and even these are known with little certainty. First, at a time when the number of Catholics is increasing, vocations are decreasing. Secondly, the decreasing number of vocations appears to vary according to the order or diocese involved.
Enclosed orders of nuns and monks, those orders involved in pastoral work involving severe hardship, and dioceses where the priests' work combines evangelism and social reconstruction (although this is more common in developing countries) are all gaining or retaining vocations.
Clearly, therefore, there can be no "blanket" rejection of the traditional vows and promises; nobody appears to believe they are out of date. Rather the validity of the ministry is being questioned.
Many religious orders — all but one diocese in England and Wales, and most in Scotland — have Vocations Directors, or people who fulfil the same functions though differently titled.
In England and Wales the Diocesan Vocations Directors meet !half-yearly. These meetings, generally held at a seminary, serve as a means of exchanging views, theories and ideas. There is no common policy for the common aim.
Unlike Scotland, there is no Vocations Commission. Thus although the Diocesan Vocations Directors work closely with the Seminaries Commission, this is more a tribute to good sense than good organisation.
Last year the CATHOLIC HERALD conducted a smallscale, preliminary survey designed to ascertain what Vocations Directors saw as the main reason for their work and to find their main methods of working.
The results, tentative though they must be, are revealing; for just as the lack of priests has fostered a new theology of the priesthood and vocations, so -too has this new theology created new opportunities (and problems) for those whose task it is — or may be — to recruit Briefly, the new theology propounds the belief that the ordained ministry has been far too exclusive. If, it says, there are to be fewer priests, obviously the functions of the priest must be performed by the laity.
Already married deacons are accepted, if rare, ministers. Just as this office has been reintroduced, so other functions will become universal.
The fully-trained priest, this theology says, will become more rare, while all his functions, even the Eucharistic ones, will perhaps be performed by worker priests, ordained as leaders of their community — possibly 'permanently, but probably only temporarily.
That, in brief, is the new theology of the priesthood; a necessary corollary of this is obviously a highly trained cadre of priests with at least the present level of education and training from which the " fieldworker " draws his strength.
Already the need for highly educated clergy is accepted, with senior seminaries being linked to universities and junior seminaries becoming more responsive to the rapidly maturing youth. Freedom is now granted much earlier, and the student given much more responsibility.
Nonetheless the new ideas of the 'priesthood and the training for it. demand new responses, and Vocations Directors would appear to be more advanced in their search for these than the rest of us.
In response to the question: "List the six most important reasons for having a Vocations Director," there was no single clear-cut answer.
Interestingly enough, the Religious Directors overwhelmingly saw their responsibility simply "to increase the number of priests."
The secular directors were not so unambiguous in their answer, Neither in the survey nor in conference at St. Peter's, Cardross, did they state that this was their primary task.
Much more commonly they believed that it was their job to counsel, to help children find whatever vocation they had, even if this was not the religious or ordained life, and simply to provide information.
This -provision of information is of evident concern to the directors. Again, there is a clear distinction between religious and secular — a distinction carried to the lengths even of different conferences although there are reciprocal rights of observers.
Nonetheless all directors are looking to new areas for priests. brothers and nuns. Advertisements appear in the secular daily press and — in America — in Playboy.
A search for new breeding grounds has also taken place in Britain, but every director laid emphasis upon the importance of family and home. This at least is unchanging.
It is a mark of the changing nature of the times that many religious communities forbid entrants to come directly from their schools, and enforce instead a three-year minimum period away. Clearly this is a wise move both for the candidate and to ensure universityeducated novices.
It is in monasteries and convents, too, that the idea of a temporary vocation has been most mooted. Religious houses certainly appear to he in a more experimental position. freed as they frequently are from the constantly pressing grind of parish life.
They are willing to accept a declining number of vocations — balancing, they say, staying power and quality against
quantity.
It is clearly too early to say how far this !belief measures up to the facts, but as fall-out rates are still high it appears over -optimistic.
It would not be unfair to say that the "vocations industry" is itself confused by the increased number of mature candidates. In every other way people are maturing earlier, so a theory of late -maturity, although popular, will not do.
Possibly the advent of advertisements specifically aimed at the older man and woman accounts for some of the rise.
Possibly also the decreasing number of young candidates lays inordinate stress upon this event. Most likely, however, the changing nature of the priesthood — appearing more adult — attracts more adults.
This at least is hopeful. There is a change, and with this change, confusion. Because the "vocations industry" shares this confusion it is possible to charge it with complacency in accepting declining numbers while having no overall policy to increase them.
But there is no complacency in the search for new methods of reaching youth. Where there is complacency — if it exists at all — is in the whole Church reconciling itself to the unpalatable facts that there will be fewer priests and more laity and that the laity will have to perform -many priestly functions, or that new criteria must be found in inviting people to be priests.