Category Archives: Vocations
Pope John XXIII on Holy Cross College, Clonliffe
The following letter was sent by Bl. Pope John XXIII to the Most Rev. John Charles McQuaid, Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland, on the occassion of the Centenary of Holy Cross College, Clonliffe (then the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Dublin):
The forthcoming celebration in your diocesan See, on the occasion of the Centenary of the foundation of the Major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Dublin is, to Our mind, entirely fitting and opportune. For if a Seminary, by reason of its object and its importance, has always been regarded by this Holy See as illustrious and worthy of veneration, it is indeed suitable that this Seminary, bearing the title of the Holy Cross and so distinguished in its beginnings and in its achievements, should be acclaimed.
The foundation of the Seminary in the year 1860 was the work of a most distinguished and eminently praiseworthy man, Paul Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin, and former Rector of the Irish College and of the Roman College of Propaganda, who was raised to the Cardinalate by Our Predecessor, Pius IX, of happy memory, in recognition of his magnificent services on behalf of the Chair of Peter and of the Universal Church. He thought it wise to link the College, which was destined for students of Philosophy and Theology, to the Catholic University, which he had established six years before to the great benefit of the whole of Ireland.
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Pastoral Letter of the Archbishops and Bishops of Ireland to the Clergy on Emigrant Problems
4th April, 1967
Dear Reverend Father,
At a recent meeting in Maynooth the bishops decided to send this letter to the clergy. The issue of such a joint letter, addressed by the Bishops to the priests only, is a rare event, which serves to underline the immense importance we attach to one particular branch of the sacred ministry. While we wish to express our appreciation and gratitude for the work you have done and are doing so zealously for all our faithful people, our chief object in writing this letter is to remind you of the special problems of our emigrants and to encourage you to continue and, if possible, to extend your pastoral ministry to those — especially the young — who are likely to leave this country to live or work in other lands.
The number of our people emigrating each year is now much less than it was some years ago and we all hope and pray that the number will continue to decline. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that for some years to come many thousands of our young people will leave our shores every year to seek their livelihood abroad, particularly in Great Britain. Their going will leave us so much the poorer.
Yet these tens of thousands of men and women can be an enormous force for good in the lands they go to, if they have the right ideals and motives, and abilities properly developed. Without these the alien environment in which they find themselves may present serious dangers to the spiritual and moral welfare of the weaker ones.
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The Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Ireland
The following is an editorial from Church and State magazine (the organ of the old Campaign to Seperate Church and State), January, 2010:
“The Age Of My Craven Deference Is Finally Over.” That was the headline on Professor Ronan Fanning’s article on the Murphy Report (Sun. Independent, 6 Dec.). Well, it was almost the headline. Fanning used the collective “our” rather than the personal “my”. But in the case of the Professor of Modern History at the chief College of the National University the personal and the collective merge. The Professor (singular) determines in great part what characterised the plurality of those who went through the educational system to its highest level.
It became well known to us long ago that the paid intelligentsia of the state were craven in their attitude towards the Church. They were sceptics in private but were cynically respectful in public, because they were craven.
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Priests and People in Ireland
The following lecture was given to the annual Maynooth Union Summer School in 1957 by Rev. Kevin Smyth, S.J., Professor of Fundamental Theology at Milltown Park, Dublin.
Dr. Samuel Johnson said that the Irish were a very fair-minded people: he never heard one Irishman speaking well of another. The same sentiment was echoed unconsciously by an Irish priest when he was asked was there any prospect of the beatification of Father Willie Doyle: “No….you’ll never get one Irishman to swear to the sanctity of another.” This attitude causes a grave difficulty to anyone taking a Gallup poll about how people regard their priests in Ireland: the first thing that the subject thinks of is criticism. “The bitther word” rises only too readily to the lips of the Irishman, and if you were fool enough to ask a straight question of a layman, he would probably begin by translating your question into: “What have I got against the priests?”
On the other hand, just as the first reaction is one-sided, it is also often superficial, and the Irishman is as insincere in his blame as he is extravagant with it. Loose talk does not represent the permanent and deep-seated attitude of people towards priests, and most people are incapable of valid generalisations, and inarticulate about their most vital and fundamental loyalties. Our difficulty is therefore to assess the real relationship on its merits, apart from conventions and habits, and to distinguish glib criticism, which people do not really stand over, from the real discontent which may be as potentially explosive as it is silent and unformulated.
My own effort to get some facts, to relate particulars to the universal, to interpret such generalisations as I dared to form, has been haunted by misgivings. Ever since I accepted the invitation to read this paper I have been saying to myself: who am I to draw up the indictment of a nation? How does one take the pulse and the temperature of a people? My only excuse and encouragement is that each of you in the audience is better informed than myself, and therefore that each of you is even more keenly conscious of the difficulty of describing “the present position of Catholics in Ireland” than I am, so that I can count on your sympathy. The best I hope to do is to spark off discussion or contradiction on some points, so that you yourselves may complete and balance the picture, out of your better judgement and wider experience. At any rate, we shall be dwelling on matters about which we all care deeply: our own purposes are involved, as well as the great issues of Ireland’s Catholic future and her almost indispensable contribution to the Church in England and overseas.
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Anonymous Seminarians Criticise Maynooth
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The above article was published in the current Catholic Voice weekly newspaper. I have tippexed out some names.
A Catechism on Vocations
The FSSP have released a a 28 minute DVD (available above on YouTube in 3 videos) entitled “To God Who Giveth Joy To My Youth” The video explores the work of priestly formation in the Fraternity’s English-speaking seminary in Denton, Nebraska. (H/T Rorate Caeli)
To complement this, I reproduce below a useful catechism on vocations, published in 1897:
Vocations Explained
by a Vincentian father
Published by Benziger Brothers, 1897
Nihil Obstat: Thos. L. Kinkead, Censor Librorum
Imprimatur: + Michael Augustine, Archbishop of New York, New York, March 2, 1897.
CHAPTER I.
DEFINITION. – EVERY PERSON HAS SOME SPECIAL VOCATION.
Q. What is a vocation?
A. A call from God to some state of life.
Q. Which are the principal states of life?
A. Matrimony, virginity, the religious state, and the priesthood.
Q. Has every person a vocation?
A. Yes; God gives a special vocation to each person.
Q. How is this doctrine proved?
A. St Paul says: “Every one hath his proper gift from God; one after this manner, and another after that. . . . As the Lord hath distributed to every one, as God hath called every one, so let him walk.”
Q. Is it not beneath God’s notice to give a particular vocation to each person?
A. Not at all; for even the birds of the air are objects of the providence of God: “Yea, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.”
Q. What do Father Faber and St. Alphonsus say on this subject?
A. Father Faber says: “Every man has a distinct vocation.” St Alphonsus says: “We must embrace that state to which God calls us.”
Q. What does St. Augustine teach concerning special vocations?
A. St. Augustine says: “He who does little, but in a state to which God calls him, does more than he who labours much, but in a state which he has thoughtlessly chosen: a cripple limping in the right way is better than a racer out of it.”
Lux Occulta 