Growing interest in the priesthood

 

The new NCRegister has two very interesting front page articles that make a fuller conversation out of the post just below. Having left off with the comment that you aren’t seeing half the story, I was glad to see that at least readers of the Register are getting more of it.

Two points are illustrated here: The priesthood is attracting a lot of men still, and especially in places where there’s a strong witness in the local priest or bishop. And the priesthood is intruiging the public more these days, especially in pockets of the media.

This story (subscription only) is about a single parish that is producing an abundance of vocations.

Occasionally, one hears of a parish that has a man in seminary — but 15 from one parish?

Priestly and religious vocations have become commonplace at Christ the King in Ann Arbor, Mich., since its inception 25 years ago. Father Ed Fride, pastor, estimated that 15-20 men from the parish have become priests — men who either grew up in the parish, became members while attending the University of Michigan, or who were affiliated with the church when they discerned their call…

Christ the King also is the home of the 15 sisters who make up the Servants of God’s Love, half of whom came from the parish. Six other women from Christ the King have joined religious life in the past five years, two with the Servants of God’s Love, and four with other orders. The parish also has five permanent deacons, three candidates and several more in formation.

What’s going on there? What’s producing all these religious vocations? Fr. Fride says it’s three things: the spirituality there that emphasizes a close, active and personal relationship with Jesus Christ; perpetual adoration available for the past five years; and the influence of Pope John Paul II.

“We constantly reference him, his teachings and the example of his life. He was the only pope that these kids knew, and they want to be like him. They want to participate in the New Evangelization, and becoming a priest is a great way to do that.

This is happening across the country. Which is why the life of ministry as a Catholic priest is capturing the imagination of creative media minds. The headline on this one is “Priest TV Show Vows Respect.”

The fall television lineup will include a show about Catholic priests. But it won’t be a tale about corrupt or dysfunctional priests, as some shows in the past have been.

Rather, “Vows” — now in production for the American Movie Channel — is about a priest who is faithful and is in love with the Church.

Imagine that.

Karen Hall, the show’s creator, is an award-winning television writer and novelist….Hall believes that part of the reason for the keen interest in the show is a fascination in mainstream American culture with the priesthood. Since the beginning of the Church’s sexual abuse scandal in 2002, Hall said that public scrutiny and curiosity about the priesthood is a phenomenon, especially in Hollywood.

“Priests for the most part used to be left alone,” she said. “But now people really wonder what it is like to walk down the street wearing a collar, why men choose to be priests in this day and age, and what the priesthood is about. And in the recent annals of priest screen characters, a man who is faithful to his vows and in love with the Church is something that almost never comes out of religious-cynical Hollywood.”

“The orthodox priest-protagonist is a novelty,” she added. “Everything else has been done: the cool liberal priest, the gay priest, the drug-addicted pastor, priests who are pedophiles or who have lost faith. Networks are interested now in what is real, which seems weird enough to them to be compelling.”

This compelling story is about a Jesuit, an order and spirituality close to the writer.

“Ignatius was really the first to show people how to find God in all things. He set the Jesuits up to be in the world, to roll up their sleeves and get into the muck. This is still true of them and they are particularly accessible to the audience because most people know a Jesuit or have at least heard of them.”

Having spent years researching the Jesuits for a movie about St. Ignatius that she is writing in her spare time, Hall stopped in Rome last month to explore the surroundings for her protagonist.

The characters and events, she said, will be based on composites of real situations. The story will feature a faithful-to-the-magisterium Jesuit priest in Rome who teaches at the Gregorian University and gets reassigned to a house of formation in the Bronx.

“To go from Rome to the Bronx is very jarring,” she said, “and the fact that it is so visually jarring will play well in the series. But the entire transition will help make a compelling case about the reality of the love these men have for St. Ignatius and the priesthood.

“My protagonist is a scholar who speaks four dead languages, is surrounded by incredible beauty, and gets reassigned to the equivalent of a seminary house where he is basically stuck taking care of administrative details such as unplugging toilets and reimbursing for cab fare to the city.”

This the real stuff of life for these men. I hope this inspires appreciation for them. And the desire to serve so rich and radical a vocation.