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Importing foreign priests is not the answer to the vocations crisis

Robert Mickens, 
Letter from Rome
 
In April, Pope Francis ordained 11 new priests for the Diocese of Rome at a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica to celebrate the Fourth Sunday of Easter—Good Shepherd Sunday, also the 55th annual World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The pope also ordained five other men for two different religious orders.
 







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The late dawn of a restless dream

A faith born in the shadows cast by a single candle in a tightly curtained room of a small farming village in a China emerging from the repression of the Cultural Revolution in the early 1980s, blossomed on February 4 in the chapel of the Columban Seminary in Manila, as Peter knelt before Bishop Honesto Ongtioco to be ordained a deacon, becoming a minister of the word of God that he had imbibed in the clandestine darkness of his home so many years before.
 
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Vocation Month in Hong Kong

HONG KONG (SE): The Diocesan Vocations Commission is set to launch a series of programmes this year to mark its 40th anniversary.
 
Sister Margarita Chan Mei-yung, the executive secretary of the commission, told the Kung Kao Po on March 24 that the commission has recently explored different ways of strengthening its promotion of a culture of vocation.
 
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Walking for vocations

HONG KONG (SE): Over 1,000 people joined the annual walk for the promotion of vocation to the religious life sponsored by the Serra Club Hong Kong and the Diocesan Vocation Commission on December 26.

The bishop of Hong Kong, John Cardinal Tong Hon, encouraged those who walked to respond generously to the call to vocation and actively carry out their mission of witnessing to and spreading God’s word.
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Vocation comes from solid spiritual formation

HONG KONG (SE): The Diocesan Vocation Committee organised a seminar on promoting vocations at St. Andrew’s parish, Tseung Kwan O, on April 2, where young people, teachers and religious were invited to share their views on how to build up a culture of vocation.
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Vocations drying up in China

HONG KONG (UCAN): Both Catholic and Protestant groups in China say they are facing a severe shortage of clergy. The drop in recruits for seminaries comes just at a time when the number of their members is on the increase.

Statistics released by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of China say that the six million-plus Catholics in the country are served by 3,316 priests across 106 parishes.
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