HOW CAN WE MAKE OUR PARISHES MORE LIKE THE NEW MOVEMENTS IN TERMS OF FAITH, FIDELITY, SPIRITUALITY AND OBEDIENCE TO THE MAGISTERIUM OF THE CHURCH--PARISHES AT ONE TIME PRIOR TO VATICAN II WERE LIKE THE NEW MOVEMENTS

Vocations to the priesthood continue to grow throughout the world. Recent statistics are eye opening: According to the newly released Annuario Pontificio, the number of major seminarians worldwide rose to 118,990 in 2010--an increase of 86.3% since 1978, when there were 63,882 major seminarians.

The ministry of Pope John Paul II was to restore the great discipline of the Church. Pope Benedict has continued to do this and results are startling compared to the period of 1978 prior to Pope John Paul II's election.

The new movements and poorer dioceses in Africa and South America account for much of the increase. This tells us something about the dangers of wealth and materialism. How hard it is for the rich to be saved!

Prior to the Second Vatican Council, parishes and their schools were like the new movements today. These were unabashedly Catholic and didn't mind standing up against the culture of the day. Sister in our Catholic schools are in great part responsible for excellent catechesis of our young and and for promoting vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Catholics wanted to be in their Catholic parishes and schools to find support for living their Catholic faith. A good Catholic education went beyond mere good academics, it went to the core of why we have Catholic schools, to hand on the Catholic faith to our Catholic children, to prepare them for salvation in both the temporal and eternal orders.

Somehow with the liberal progressiveness of post Vatican II Catholics who thought innovation, dissent and the loss of a strong pre-Vatican II Catholic identity for the clergy and the laity was like a breath of fresh air and opening of the windows of the Church, everything that they thought the spirit of Vatican II would bring to the Church would be nothing but pure Utopia. God showed this tower building Babylonians who is God, hasn't He.

I cannot think of one religious order who initially thought that updating their order by throwing out each and everything that made their orders unique and attractive to potential vocations, would actually have a beneficial impact on their orders. Each and every religious order who have loss their sense of mission, identity and community as well as their habit is on the verge of extinction. However, the aging sisters who now comprise these orders and are quite comfortable with their spirit of Vatican II lifestyles could care less about actual renewal of their religious orders. They're happy to live out their lives in relative comfort and security without the baggage that once made their orders powerful and filled with vocations.

Parishes which tried the religious order model of spirit of Vatican II renewal also have experienced the same decline in active participation and have formed spirit of Vatican II Catholics who are just slightly different than agnostics.

Only those parishes with a strong, unabashed Catholic identity and traditional spirituality, piety and obedience to the Magisterium are providing vocations to the priesthood and religious life. When these parishes provide encouragement and support to traditional Catholic families and call these families to be the Church in miniature, with prayer in the home as well as catechesis and outreach to the needy and Sunday Mass as the center piece of their Catholic life, vocations develop.

We should also note that Catholic Home Schoolers have continued the tradition of the pre-Vatican II Catholic school, where parents use Catholic curriculum to be the primary teachers of their children in all aspects of education. These Catholic Home Schoolers are the ones now providing vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Is there something to be learned from Catholic Homeschoolers in terms of educational basics and simplicity and it's link to strong Catholic families and parishioners? I think so!