PENSIONERS should consider becoming priests according to Bishop Costanzo Micci of Fano in Italy. His call has already received backing from the 0.vservatore Romano and Vatican radio.
The bishop has founded a centre to encourage late vocations in his diocese. He hopes that pensioner priests would solve the problem of occupations for the elderly and that of a lack of younger vocations.
In Englund the Commission for Priestly Formation recommends the possibility of part-time training for late vocations, as outlined in the Cherwell Report. But adds that pensioners would have to consider their state of health before trying their vocation.
The Beda College in Rome has ordained men in their seventies. The octagenarian father of one priest in England was ordained recently and now works as a priest in' Gibraltar. Like father, like father.