When Catholic Bishops Refuse to Ask the Right Questions About Why Their Seminaries Are Empty
By Daniel Attard
We are witnessing a time of great scandal in the Church, and many speculate as to why this is. I have long believed that priests and religious who fall into grave scandal do so as a result of the abandonment of the external witness to the faith – that is, by ceasing to wear their priestly clericals/habit.
At the dusk of the Second Vatican Council, priests in their droves discarded their clericals and hid amongst the faithful, resulting in a downward spiral still bearing rotten fruit today. Many priests stopped acting like priests when they ceased living like priests; they ceased living like priests when they stopped praying like priests. And they stopped praying like priests when they stopped dressing like priests.
Recently, I came across several instances where seminaries around the world were partaking in the centuries-old tradition often referred to as the taking of the cassock and tonsure. Without going into finer detail, this milestone on the road to priesthood predominantly occurs for seminarians commencing their second and third years of formation, though this can vary. On a personal level, I confess that reading such articles makes me quite envious of these seminarians.
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