THE OLD ROMAN CATHOLIC MISSION SOUTH EAST UK

Special Report Promising vocations news from Asia, Africa, and Oceania.

by Jeff Ziegler | July 2008 | CWR

The Church worldwide has been blessed since 1978 with a surge in the number of seminarians. According to data published in L’Osservatore Romano and the Vatican’s statistical yearbook (the Secretariat of State’s Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae),there were 63,882 diocesan and religious major seminarians when JohnPaul II began his pontificate in 1978; by the end of 2005, that numberhad grown to 114,439—a remarkable increase of 79.1 percent. During thesame time period, the number of Catholics worldwide grew 47.4 percentfrom 756,533,000 to 1,114,966,000, while world population increased48.8 percent, from 4.302 billion to 6.4 billion. Mostof the growth in the number of candidates for the priesthood took placein Africa, where seminarians more than quadrupled from 5,636 to 23,580,and in Asia, where the number nearly tripled from 11,536 to 30,066. TheAmericas, too, saw a growth in the number of seminarians, from 22,011to 36,891, as did Australia and Oceania, whose numbers rose slightlyfrom 784 to 944. The number of European seminarians, on the other hand,declined from 23,915 to 22,958.

While these continental trends manifest the vitality of the Churchin Africa and Asia during the past three decades, they do not addressthe question of which countries are currently the most successful inattracting priestly vocations. To answer this question, CWRhas calculated the ratio of seminarians to Catholics in each of theworld’s nations and territories based on data in the 2005 edition ofthe Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae, which was published in 2007 by Libreria Editrice Vaticana. The Annuariumpresents a year-end statistical overview of the Church—the 2005 editionoffers data as of December 31, 2005—and does not publish any statisticsfor two nations: China and North Korea.

The ratio of seminariansto Catholics presents a more accurate picture of how vocation-rich anation is than does the absolute number of seminarians. While theUnited States, for example, has more seminarians than Eritrea does(4,736 vs. 289), an Eritrean Catholic is 26 times more likely to enterthe seminary than an American Catholic is. Likewise, Macedonia is 37times more vocation-rich than Canada, and an Indian Catholic is 75times more likely to become a seminarian than is a Catholic inLuxembourg.

ASIA

Worldwide,there is one seminarian for every 9,743 Catholics. In Asia, the mostvocation-rich continent, there is one seminarian for every 3,877Catholics.

Fifteen of the world’s three dozen most vocation-rich nations arelocated in Asia, and over 45 percent of Asian seminarians are Indian.India has more seminarians—13,754—than any other nation in the world,even though it ranks only 16th in the world in Catholic population.India has more seminarians than all of the nations of North America andCentral America combined. Nearly a quarter of Catholics inIndia are Eastern Catholics, and the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church,which has 25 Indian eparchies (dioceses), traces its origin to thepreaching of St. Thomas the Apostle. Father Antony Kollannur,chancellor of the Syro-Malabar Church’s major archiepiscopal curia,told CWR that India has so many seminarians because of “thelong-standing tradition of around 2,000 years of Christian living,which is nourished by daily family prayers, frequent attendance at theliturgical celebrations, even on weekdays, and the great care taken toimpart Christian teachings to the young children through thewell-organized regular Sunday catechism classes.”

Father GeorgeMadathi Parampil, vicar general of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Diocese ofChicago, says several factors contribute to India’s success:

• “Veryexemplary Christian family life” with “no divorces”; “faith is anintegral part of life,” manifested in Mass attendance and thecatechesis of children;
• “The influence of Catholic schools and colleges, where the Catholic atmosphere is still very much alive”;
• “The good examples given by the priests and their active involvement in the lives of the people”;
• “The interest the Christian community shows in bettering the lives of the economically depressed people”;
• TheChurch’s “active voice, never keeping silence when secular forces tryto denigrate the moral and religious values of the people”; “Daily family prayer and Rosary at home”;
• “Thefaith tradition of ‘St. Thomas Catholics’ of [the southwestern Indianstate of] Kerala, which traces its faith-heritage to the preaching ofSt. Thomas the Apostle and which has the greatest number of vocations.”

Kerala is not a predominantly Catholic state: overhalf of its residents are Hindu, and a quarter are Muslim. FatherGregory Arby, a Latin Rite priest and dogmatic theology professor atSt. Joseph’s Pontifical Seminary in Kerala, says that while “the mediaare very much critical of us,” the “faith remains very strong.” FatherArby also points to vocation-promotion programs for high schoolstudents and the strong social status of priests as keys to attractingseminarians. Observing that “many of the vocations we now have are fromthe poor families,” he concedes that the “financial security” ofpriestly ministry may also play a role in India’s success in producingpriestly vocations.

That success has had ramifications inneighboring Nepal, the world’s second most vocation-rich nation, with26 seminarians for only 7,000 Catholics. “Almost all the religiousworking in Nepal today are Indians,” says Chirendra Satyal, secretaryof the nation’s Catholic Media Commission. Father Bill Robins, aCanadian Jesuit at St. Xavier School in Kathmandu, also told CWR thatmost of Nepal’s seminarians are Indians. Satyal says that Protestantismis spreading rapidly across the Hindu nation and predicts that, withthe collapse of the Hindu monarchy, Catholicism will soon follow suit:

Theoverall Christian population in Nepal has grown from a few thousand in1990 to an estimated half a million now…. The ratio of seminarians toCatholics will decrease in the future, as I feel many people will nowbe becoming Catholics as the freedom to preach or openly evangelize isnow there for the first time. You can now promote vocations intoreligious life openly, but still the number of lay people will growmore rapidly.

Bishop Anthony Sharma, SJ, the vicarapostolic of Nepal, has led the Church in his native land since 1984.He told CWR that the number of native seminarians has increased toseven because of an emphasis on pastoral work with youth. In additionto annual youth retreats and parish-based youth movements like theLegion of Mary, Bishop Sharma emphasizes the importance of “having afacility like what we call apostolic school, where village boys whogive indications of intellectual ability and/or desire for the priestlyor religious way of life are given the opportunity to continue theirhigh school education and helped to deepen their knowledge of faith.The boys who join apostolic school are usually 12 to 15 years old.”

Anactive program of youth vocation recruitment also plays a role inThailand’s success in attracting seminarians (the country is ranked11th). A spokesman for the nation’s episcopal conference told CWR that“there is an annual campaign in every diocese every year,” and“recruitment is made when they are still young.” One major program is“vocational camping for the youth during summer vacation every year.”

Two of Asia’s most vocation-rich nations—Myanmar (16th) and Vietnam(29th)—were among 11 nations cited by the US Commission onInternational Religious Freedom for grave violations of religiousfreedom on May 2. Bishop Pierre Trân Ðinh Tu of Phú Cuong told theSynod of Bishops in 2005 that Eucharistic devotion is bearing muchfruit in the Church in Vietnam:

VietnameseCatholics are practicing. For them, the Eucharistic celebration is ofspecial importance. About 80 percent attend Mass on Sundays, and 15percent during weekdays. On important feasts, such as Christmas andEaster, the number may reach 96 percent. If one wishes to find out thecause, one can find this out in the catechetical formation and infamily education…. The lay faithful are made aware and invited to studythe documents of the Magisterium of the Church on the Eucharist.… Theepiscopal conference organized a Eucharistic Congress at the CentreMarial National de Lavang, and there were 500,000 participants.

Parishesare invited to build adoration halls outside the church and to organizepermanent adoration or several hours of adoration in the day …Eucharistic worship in Vietnam has brought healthy effects: religiouslife has increased, community activities are more animated, fraternalcommunion is more sensitive, and mutual aid among families has becomemore natural and numerous. 

Even the prosperousAsian nations of South Korea (27th) and Japan (32nd) have been able toattract seminarians, though controversy has surrounded theNeocatechumenal Way seminary in the Diocese of Takamatsu, Japan. Threetimes between December 2007 and April 2008, delegations of Japanesebishops visited Rome to discuss the seminary’s potential closure.Asia-based UCA News quoted Tokyo Archbishop Peter Okada as saying, “Wehave here a serious problem. In the small Catholic Church of Japan, thepowerful sect-like activity of Way members is divisive andconfrontational. It has caused sharp, painful division and strifewithin the Church. We are struggling with all our strength to overcomethe problem.” In April, the Japanese bishops secured Rome’s approval toclose the seminary.

Technically, the world’s most vocation-richnation, based on official statistics, is Mongolia. Father PierrotKasemuana Kitengie, CICM, a Congo-born missionary and superior of hisreligious community in Mongolia, explains the anomaly: “We do not havea single seminarian here … [the three seminarians] were young membersof different religious congregations working in Mongolia … before beingordained priests. Actually this is the only kind of seminarian we havehere, from time to time.”

Not every Asian nation isvocation-rich: Middle Eastern Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia arehosting increasingly large numbers of Catholic guest workers, but maynot have a single parish, let alone a seminary.

THE HOLY LAND

Christiansalso face grave difficulties in vocation-rich Israel and thePalestinian Territories (13th); among these difficulties, says recentlyretired Jerusalem Auxiliary Bishop Kamal H. Bathish, are “the very hardtimes that have always troubled this area because of the manysuccessive wars, the consequent and permanent hard conditions of life,and emigration of Christian faithful.” The political situation led tothe closure of a seminary for a year, and at it has been physicallyimpossible for some young men to attend seminary. In addition, “socialconditions (style of life, mentality, some aspects of civilization,etc.) imported from foreign European or American countries easily had anegative influence, reducing or almost suppressing the number ofvocations to the priesthood and religious life in some parts.”Nonetheless, Israel and the Holy Land remain vocation-rich, says BishopBathish, for several reasons:

Wemust acknowledge that in the Middle East our people still conserve thesense and the importance of family life. This has been minimized insome parts of the diocese but, generally speaking, marriage and familyare held in great respect, esteem, and importance. It is very frequent,after a generation that had easily five, six, or seven children, to seefamilies even today with three, four, and even more children….

OurCatholic population usually lives around and close to the parish centerand to the pastor, making relations with the Church easy and frequent.Where the pastor and the sisters frequently visit the families, theidea of becoming a priest or a nun remains alive within the people.

Theparish school, usually run by either the pastor or the nearby sistersor even by some lay person belonging to the community and under thesupervision of the pastor, is one of the most important elements thathelp to promote vocations, either to priesthood or to religious lifefor men or women. The parish school, financed by the Church, tries toreceive as much as possible all the children of the community….

Weare so privileged that our seminary has never known any vocationscrisis (neither a students’ nor professors’ crisis), as it happened inEuropean and American countries…. One difference [now] is that some“late vocations” (around 20-28 years of age) have been introduced. 

Father Humam Khzouz, chancellor of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, concurs; he told CWRthat “we still have strong family relations … we still have ourCatholic schools, where our parishioners receive their spiritualeducation, Catholic values, and catechism. The link between the priestsand the families is strong; there are visits to the families, theblessing of houses. We still have [a] religious atmosphere.”

Msgr.William Shomali, rector of the Latin patriarchate’s major seminary,believes that the ratio of seminarians to Catholics is actually closerto one seminarian per 3,000 Catholics. Few seminarians, he says, comefrom the state of Israel, for “the quality of life in Israel is likethe USA and Europe: very materialistic. The religious practice and thenumber of children per family are lower” than those of Palestinians andJordanians.

AFRICA

With oneseminarian for every 6,508 Catholics, Africa is the second mostvocation-rich continent. The Coptic and Ethiopian Christian culturesthat arose from the preaching of St. Mark in Alexandria remain fertile:modern-day Eritrea (5th), Egypt (15th), and Ethiopia (24th) are amongthe world’s most vocation-rich nations.

Eritrea —“one of theworld’s most repressive countries,” according to Paris-based Reporterswithout Borders—is the home of three Eastern Catholic eparchies of theEthiopian Catholic Church. Father Ghebriel Woldai, who ministers toEritrean Catholics at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley,California, says that many Eritrean Catholics become seminariansbecause of the “good faith of the people and support of each family tothe seminarians. And the faithful, by practicing their faith, alsoinspire the seminarians to see priesthood and a religious life as aperfect life for them. Most of the families of seminarians encouragetheir sons to become priests.”

Egypt ’s Coptic Catholic Church,like the Ethiopian Catholic Church, uses the Alexandrian Rite. BishopKyrillos William Samaan, the Coptic Catholic bishop of Assiut, told CWRthat the principal reasons for the Church in Egypt’s success inattracting seminarians are cultural (“We are a traditional, religiouspeople”), economic (“To be priest is a promotion for many people”), andapostolic (“We are doing intensive vocational pastoral work forrecruiting vocations”).

Two of Africa’s most vocation-richnations— Algeria (3rd) and Niger (11th)—are almost entirely Muslim. IvoMukoudi Lobe, the Algerian contact for the Charles de FoucauldFraternity, says that since September 11, 2001, Algeria has experiencedfewer tensions between Christians and Muslims than many other nations.The spirituality of Blessed Charles de Foucauld, says Lobe, “has beenvery helpful in fighting against poverty in many disadvantaged areas ofthe world” and has also “been helpful for those Christians in minorityliving in Muslim countries,” perhaps “further explaining thephenomenon” of seminarians in Algeria, whether foreign or native.

Niger, one of the world’s poorest nations, has an average life expectancy of44. Father Callistus Baalaboore, SMA, who ministers in Zinder, thenation’s second-largest city, discounted the importance of thevocations statistics. “The Christian population in Niger is so low thatwhen you divide the number of seminarians into it the ratio is high,”he says. “The Church in Niger is still in the primary [stages] ofevangelization, and more than 97 percent of the population is Muslim …Niger is still lacking pastoral agents at all the levels.”

Besidesthe nations where the Alexandrian Rite Eastern Catholic Churches havetaken root, West Africa is the most vocation-rich area of thecontinent. Nigeria (39th) has 5,631 seminarians, more than any otherAfrican nation; other West African countries that have a strong trackrecord of attracting seminarians are Mali (38th), Cameroon (41st),Burkina Faso (42nd), Benin (43rd), Ghana (46th), Senegal (48th), andTogo (49th). Zimbabwe (36th) and Swaziland (40th) also attract aproportionally high number of seminarians.

OCEANIA

Oceania, with one seminarian for every 9,214 Catholics, has nations andterritories that are among both the most vocation-rich and the mostvocation-poor in the world. While Australia’s 252 seminarians ranksecond numerically within Oceania to Papua New Guinea’s 427, the nationhosting the 2008 World Youth Day is vocation-poor (154th), as is NewZealand (144th).

Other Pacific Island cultures, however, havebeen remarkably succes

sful in producing candidates for the priesthood.Tonga (6th), the Cook Islands (7th), Tokelau (10th), Fiji (17th), theSolomon Islands (19th), Vanuatu (31st), American Samoa (35th), andSamoa (37th) are among the world’s most vocation-rich nations andterritories.

Emily MacGruder, a Catholic Peace Corps volunteerin Tonga’s capital of Nuku’alofa, offered CWR an American’s perspectiveon Catholic life in Tonga:

Thereason that the Church in Tonga has attracted so many seminarians hasmore to do with Tonga’s culture than anything else. Tonga is anincredibly Christian society in practice. On Sundays, the entirecountry shuts down except for the bread stores. Every family attends achurch each week, often multiple services.… Religious leaders here aregiven a great deal of respect and, to an extent, power. This is thereason I believe that the Catholic Church in Tonga has so manyseminarians.… Working for the Church is one of just a few ways to gainprestige in this society that still has a political and social systemwith kings and nobles.…

Thelarge majority of Tongans desire to get abroad. The priesthood is a wayto do that. All seminarians are sent to Fiji and many appear to havefurther opportunities to work or study abroad.… I hope that answerdoesn’t sound too cynical. It’s the way I see it here.… That said, allof the priests I’ve met in Tonga have struck me as extremely committed,discerning, curious, and intelligent. 

BillFalekaono, the Diocese of Tonga’s communications secretary, himself aformer seminarian, traces the growth in Tongan vocations to the 1970opening of a regional seminary in Fiji; previously, seminarians wereeducated in Australia or New Zealand. Falekaono also says that thecloseness between Tongan priests and laity has helped to fosterpriestly vocations. “Because there are more and more local priestsbeing ordained, people often know these young men, and they visit, andthe priest becomes an ordinary person—not isolated and [not] leftlonely in a presbytery,” Faledaono says. In addition, “people arewillingly and genuinely offering their sons and daughters to the workof the Church,” for families have “a sense of pride” when one of theirfamily members “serves in the life of priesthood or nunnery.”Materialistic motives cannot be discounted in some cases, he says; the“clergy lifestyle is an attractive one” in slow economic times.

LikeFalekaono, Bishop Stuart O’Connell, SM, of the Cook Islands’ capital ofRarotonga, attributes his diocese’s success in attracting seminariansto Catholic family life. “While every vocation is a gift of God,” hetold CWR, “I would see the foundation of wholesome familylife as being an important ingredient. The vocations in the CookIslands (both of priests and sisters) have come from families living onouter islands and atolls. In these smaller communities, family life iscentered around Church life and activity.… Unless a young person isgrounded in a strong faith, vocations will not come. I am filled withadmiration for the wonderful faith of many of these families who haveto struggle for everything they have. Yet challenges are a breedingground for strong faith.”

Similarly, Archbishop Adrian Smith,SM, of the Solomon Islands’ capital of Honiara, says that “many parentsseem happy that their sons want to be priests. The place of the priestis important in our village communities.… Families are large here inSolomon Islands, and so giving a son to the priesthood is moreacceptable.” Other factors, he believes, contribute to his nation’ssuccess in producing seminarians:

• “Having our seminary in Solomon Islands has made a difference; young men feel confident about giving it a try”;
• “People in Solomon Islands are a very spiritual people; God plays a big part in their lives”;
• “Atthe end of secondary education, there are not many job opportunitiesavailable to young people; searching for something to do with theirlives is very real to them”;
• “The Church is young inSolomon Islands, and there is a lot of excitement when a young man isordained—that must spark off ideas in the minds of other young men.”

Unlikemost of Pacific Island lands, the French territory of New Caledonia(170th) has faced particular difficulties in attracting seminarians.Father François Grossin, SM, a French missionary who serves as vicar ofthe cathedral of the Archdiocese of Nouméa, says that the decision toclose New Caledonia’s seminary when the regional seminary opened inFiji proved disastrous; while it eventually reopened, most seminariansare still sent to Fiji. Also harmful to priestly vocations was “theFrench 1968 cultural revolution and its side effects on the youth andalso on the young priests of New Caledonia,” a significant number ofwhom left the priesthood at that time, including the seminary’s lastdirector before its closing. Finally, the “nickel boom” of the 1970sbrought prosperity to the territory but transformed it into a“secularized and materialistic” society, says Father Grossin.

Ingeneral, though, Oceania—excepting Australia and New Zealand—is one ofthe world’s most vocation-rich areas. “Who can fathom the mind of God?”asks Archbishop Smith. “Perhaps, it being evening time for themissionaries, it is morning time for the local Church.”