They just need to keep doing what they’re doing!

Someone once said something along the lines of, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

The Bitter Pill (aka The Tablet aka RU-486) has a story that 130 year old Wonersh Seminary in England will close at the end of this academic year.  The seminarians will go to Allen Hall in London.

With ‘great sadness’, trustees decide Wonersh must close

[…]

The seminary, whose motto is Spes messis in semine – the hope of the harvest is in the seed – currently has 17 students, from the Dioceses of Southwark, Arundel and Brighton, Clifton and Portsmouth. Of these, six are due to complete their formation next summer. There were no new admissions this year. Of the 11 remaining, five will be deacons in their final year.

[…]

Yeah, right.

Just keep on doing what you are doing until ALL the seminaries are closed.

Then will you be happy?

Or is it time to try something different?

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Cri de Coeur, Our Catholic Identity, Seminarians and Seminaries, The Coming Storm, The future and our choices and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

9 Comments

  1. tho says:

    From what I read that does not seem to be a problem at Traditional Seminaries. The same at Traditional Convents, and if what I read is correct they are over crowded.
    Quite awhile back someone posted a comment about Coca Cola. It seems as if Coca Cola thought that changing the formula, that made it so popular, was a good idea, that’s when sales crashed. They hurriedly went back to the old formula, and the ship righted it’s self. Coca Cola was fortunate that Pope Paul VI was not their CEO.

  2. kat says:

    17?
    How sad.
    There are 19 in my son’s class in his traditional seminary, in his second year, and I hear 30 new first year students are expected soon.
    Oh Lord grant us many holy priests!
    Oh Lord grant us many holy religious vocations!
    Oh Lord grant us many holy Catholic families!

  3. The Masked Chicken says:

    “ Someone once said something along the lines of, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’”

    The quote is often mis-attributed to Einstein. Business Insider reports:

    12. “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — not Albert Einstein

    Different versions of this quote appear everywhere (doing the same thing twice, expecting the same result, etc.), and we owe none of them to Einstein.

    After Michael Becker, an editor at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle (a local paper in Montana), let the wrong version slide into an editorial, he did some research on his personal blog.

    Becker traced the original back to Rita Mae Brown, the mystery novelist. In her 1983 book “Sudden Death,” she attributes the quote to a fictional “Jane Fulton,” writing, “Unfortunately, Susan didn’t remember what Jane Fulton once said. ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.'”

    https://www.businessinsider.com/misattributed-quotes-2013-10

    The Chicken

  4. Ferretti says:

    The gift of tears according to St. Ignatius of Loyola (if I recall correctly) wasn’t limited to compunction for our personal sins, which of course is paramount, but also included tears of gratitude, or being moved to tears for the awe, the beauty and goodness of God, meditating on the Passion and death of Our Lord, Our Lady’s attributes and the like. Is this also having the gift of tears? What about the scandals in the Church and society? The suffering and hardships our fellow man is enduring in these terrible times? Pachamama. Surely there’s enough there to weep over?

  5. Athelstan says:

    Unfortunately, for Tabletistas, “something different” means: “It’s time to ordain women!”

  6. Athelstan says:

    “From what I read that does not seem to be a problem at Traditional Seminaries.”

    Ponder the fact that the Institute of Christ the King ordained more men (9) in 2020 than did all the dioceses in Ireland (1) or all the dioceses of Belgium (5) put together.

    Amazing to think about, given the enormous institutional advantages that the Belgian and Irish dioceses have over any traditional pristly society.

  7. L. says:

    I always think that “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result” is the definition of “practicing.

    Two friends of mine have been accepted into the diaconate program in our diocese, which does not require seminary, of course, but the principle is the same. My reaction to the news was, “Who would want to be a Permanent Deacon in this diocese?”

  8. BW says:

    The statistics for England and Wales are as sad as they are illuminating. http://www.ukvocation.org has the full breakdown between Dioceses and with projected seminarian entrants etc. up to 2018. No data on 2019 yet uploaded. Some dioceses here are in proper dire straights.

  9. I live in England and it just… so sad.

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