Welcome registrant:
ICH
Churchy news:
I just read that there is ONE seminarian for the Archdiocese of DUBLIN.
One seminarian.
Chessy news:
In the team tournament in Astana, there was a strange moment in a game between the highly unlikable Hans Niemann and Ian Nepomniatchchi. Firstly, Magnus had dodged playing Hans, leaving Board 1 for Nepo (on the same team in the #2 slot). Hans was, of course, Board 1 for his team (named after himself). The game beings and Hans laughed at Nepo’s moves. Frankly, I think he was scoffing at Nepo’s nonchalant attitude. Nepo did look less than eager to be there. Having watched it a couple of times, I get the impression that Niemann was frustrated at the guess that nobody really wanted to take him as seriously as he takes himself. In fact, the game tapered off into a draw.
Niemann on Carlson on Twitter/X.
Black to move, mate in 4.
NB: I’ll hold comments with solutions ’till the next day so there won’t be “spoilers” for others.
Priestly chess players, drop me a line. HERE
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One of the best commencement speeches of all times! pic.twitter.com/MTelVb1lH0
— Military Support (@MilitaryCooI) August 3, 2024
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Rome is so amazing. Look at this little chapel.
My family can chase its roots to Dublin. Just throwing this out there, the one seminarian is a result of things being pretty gay. Hard to suspect anything else to be honest. The gay spirit crushes life.
re: Dublin
Wow. Depressing numbers on two fronts.
First being vocations to the priesthood in Dublin. Which has been known.
Second being vocations of people who can write to work for British newspapers. One’s going on about Father Ted, and you’d need to take a pick & shovel to the other to glean one of the background facts (that Gardiner St has been a Jesuit parish for 50 years).
Rome Shot:
Cappella Antamoro
https://www.walksinrome.com/the-cappella-antamoro-in-the-church-of-san-girolamo-della-carita.html
So interesting and not-at-all shocking to read to the end of the article where their actual point comes. There is one seminarian, so it’s time to ordain married men to be part-time priests, and wymyn to be non-part-time priests — I mean, female-identifying people to be female-identifying priests and deacons. Of course, after what happened in Ireland with the horror of their abuse scandalization, even the married men and wymyn don’t want me to be priests anymore, especially as they can now get homosexual-union-marriage-spontaneous-blessings from the handful of priests left.
The gates of hell cannot prevail against the Church, and I firmly believe that even when I just don’t see it happening in very many places anymore. The indefectibility of the Church has become almost wholly a matter of faith, it seems, as is the indestructibility.
Ugh. Father, I promise I edited. And then hit post and saw the “me.”
***don’t want there to be priests…***
Every single Catholic Olympic participant, volunteer, or employee should have quit after the opening ceremonies.
If not, then I don’t know what it takes for someone to realize they need to stand up for his or her faith.
One seminarian… Which would tend to imply he has been shipped off somewhere else for formation; if so, where, and how does that seminary compare with what the Diocese would do, were they in a position to run a seminary themselves?
@Tom of God
Yes, they have to include that so that the Irish start thinking that’s the only solution. Gaslighting at its best.
@maternalView
As you know, the faith has been watered down over the past 60 years, so people wouldn’t even think to quit.
I saw the headline for an article in one of the Irish newspapers yesterday that someone is quitting because she’s injured. People here in “Catholic” Ireland are still following the Olympics.
In our much smaller rural diocese we had our first priest ordained last June since 2019. I’m not sure that we have any seminarians; if we do it’s a couple. And we’re usually one of the better dioceses.
Dioceses must be doing something wrong in regards to vocations. My family attends a small SSPX chapel in the Boise area. There is at least one boy who goes to visit the seminary each year from our parish. Sometimes 3-4. Each year 4-5 boys go visit a traditional monastery in New Mexico from our parish. I think the key is prayer (the moms of our parish pray the Mothers of Lu prayer together monthly and have weekly adoration for vocations), having the incredible examples of the priests who travel 6 hours each week to offer sacraments at our mission chapel, and positive peer pressure to pursue vocations. None of that was happening at our diocesan parish. They tried to get vocations events going and it was okay, but there wasn’t the dedication or fervor I see at our little chapel.
Fr. Z, are there any places in America that are healthy for a young man who wants to be a priest? Even if a diocese currently has a good bishop or a religious order is good, you have to expect those places to go bad as the decades of horrible global and national leadership role on. These young men are not super human.
The best priest I know of in a famously liberal archdioceses says that when he hears that a young man is going to try and be a priest he feels like going to another room and crying, because these days you’re not only swimming upstream in society you are doing so in the Church.
1. Qd3+ Qe2 traps her King.
2. Qb1+ (…then some clean-up.)
Having been a seminarian at St. Patrick’s College, I suppose it’s not surprising. Monsignor Mike Ledwith who was the rector when when I was at Maynooth was hardly a wise choice. In the 1990’s Ireland was beginning to shake off the excesses of the clergy, which is why “Father Ted” resonated so well: It concerns the comic misadventures of three corrupt priests rusticated to where they can (hopefully) do no further damage.
Given everything that followed, the Ferns Report, the Murphy Report, the Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation, the implication of four Archbishops of Dublin (McQuaid, Ryan, McNamara, and Cardinal Connell) for complicity, the recommendation to prosecute Auxilliary Bishop Walsh of Dublin, the public anger at the Pope’s non-apology letter–why would anyone coming up be drawn to spending a career in that organizaton? I don’t think they’ve properly reckoned yet with how badly they’ve hurt their case. The solution might partly be more Latin masses, sure. But the rot is deep and the public is enormously angry at the Church and that Church has done very little to counter-message.
Ah, I don’t know about the chess this time but, I see mate in 2 moves for black. queen to D3 blacks only defense is the knight to E2 which is no help at all because Queen to D1 check mate. I could be wrong but thats fat ladies singing there. No 4 moves necessary for Black in this case. Anyone else?
okay, I stand corrected black queen to D3 still stands, but white can move queen to E2. that is a better move, but does not save him. Black queen to B1 the white queen cannot E1 without the immediate checkmate from black because of the black bishop on that diagonal. The only legal move that keeps white in the game is Queen D1. Black queen X D1 checkmate. 3 moves.
OzReader: If I have successfully found current references with my Google search… (big IF)
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Dublin closed its own seminary around 2002, I think.
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The only other seminary in Ireland is Maynooth (as mentioned by PostCatholic above). It is the seminary for all Ireland (Republic and Northern Ireland).
Seminarians there actually do their first year of formation at a location other than Maynooth itself – somewhere abroad, I think.
It’s not easy to get a clear picture of how many seminarians are currently in formation under Maynooth. Articles have conflicting numbers, with some skewing of dates. From what I’ve seen in different references, it’s somewhere between 2 to 3 dozen and 5 to 6 dozen (probably closer to the lower number). One of the biggest chunks of that number seems to come from the Redemptoris Mater group.
(Reference websites put the population of all Ireland at around 7 Million people, and perhaps ~4 Million identify as Catholic.)
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Of course, I suppose an individual bishop might choose to send his seminarians elsewhere.
Historically, there were Irish seminaries in places in mainland Europe when it was not possible under British rule for seminarians to be formed in Ireland. All but one of those are gone.
The Pontifical Irish College is still operating in Rome, but I saw an article from a few years ago that they weren’t taking Irish seminarians at that point.
There are many reasons for a decline in vocations to the priesthood, including the drastically dropping birth rate, constant use of cell phones by the youth, etc. But one solution that is not thought of by the bishops are minor seminaries. There are only 3 in the entire United States run by religious orders (one each in Indiana, Wisconsin, and Minnesota by the Legionaries of Christ, Capuchins, and Institute of the Incarnate Word respectively), but in Mexico almost every diocese and many religious orders have a minor seminary for boys 7th grade and up. When I lived in Mexico 5 years ago nearly every Mexican priest I met had gone through a minor seminary and none had a vocation before they started the minor seminary. The Archdiocese of Guadalajara has 4 minor seminaries spread throughout the archdiocese and at the Archdiocesan Corpus Cristi Procession there 2 years ago there were hundreds of minor seminarians participating, and Guadalajara averages about 30 diocesan ordinations every year. Reading priestly vocation stories, I notice so many priests saying they felt the call in grade school, but they lost it in high school, so how many other priestly vocations must have been snuffed out in high school. Minor seminaries can prevent that by nurturing vocations at the time boys are most corrupted by the outside world (even in the co-ed Catholic high schools). My son is about to start minor seminary in 8th grade at the Sacred Heart Apostolic School run by the Legionaries of Christ. He took part in some camps during the last couple of years there and he loved it. They only ask that their students are open to a vocation, not that they already have one. There are 5 priests in charge of the school with a few lay male teachers teaching some of the school subjects. About 20% of seminarians that finish this school enter a major seminary, but every student benefits from the high intellectual and spiritual formation along with the work ethic and true camaraderie the school provides. Kids come from all around the country. Maybe the bishops could band together and open 5 such seminaries spread around the country. It would be a good investment, though I am sure they will find a way to mess it up in the end.
tzabiega: Regarding minor seminaries in the USA and orders & dioceses…
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Brooklyn has Cathedral Preparatory School & Seminary. High School, grades 9-12, all boys, serving Brooklyn but also Rockville Centre & ADNY.
Unless there’s some distinction in definitions between Preparatory & Minor that Cathedral doesn’t check some box, I think Brooklyn would qualify.