Vocations Sunday, and there are more Ordinations to the Priesthood in England and Wales now than there were in the 1950s. In those day, huge numbers of priests were imported from a country which now ordains almost no one. The English and Welsh Church is not ordaining as many priests as She did in the 1990s. But that was due to the unexpected influx of large numbers of former Anglican clergymen.
Many things may be said, either of the wider celebration of the Extraordinary Form, or of the more general ordination of married men. Not least that many of the most orthodox and vibrant parts of the Church, including several with very recent histories of martyrdom specifically for the cause of Petrine Unity, combine a classical liturgical life with a generally married Priesthood.
But the fact is that their respective partisans are turning them into solutions in search of a problem. We do not need either more Latin Masses or more married priests in order to solve the problem of the "priest shortage". There are more Ordinations to the Priesthood in England and Wales now than there were in the 1950s.
Once again, Lindsay hasn't bothered to check his facts. The implausible claim that there are 'more ordinations than in the 1950s' has now been completely discredited.
ReplyDeleteImplausible to whom? Discredited by whom? These are perfectly simple things to check.
ReplyDeleteThere may have been far more priests in England and Wales 50 or 60 years ago. There may even, perhaps, have been more ordinations for the English and Welsh dioceses. But huge numbers of them had been produced somewhere else. England and Wales did not really produce all that many. The very largely contented themselves with being Irish missions.
Especially of men who have never previously been clergy elsewhere (there are still quite a few, although nowhere near as many as in the 1990s), home-grown English and Welsh ordinations are experiencing their Golden Age, at least to date, right now.
That you do not want something to be true does not mean that it isn't. Think about it, in fact, and you can see with your own eyes that it is.