Priests at Rome Conference Share Their Challenges, Strong Signs of Hope
Clergy speak with the Register about falling Mass attendance and other concerns, while highlighting how the young faithful’s seeking out Christ in particular brings hope in the Jubilee Year.
Editor's Note: This story is expanded coverage of the Third International Convocation of the Confraternities of Catholic Clergy. The first part included comments from Cardinals Robert Sarah, Gerhard Müller and Raymond Burke.
ROME — Priests in the West today are facing a raft of challenges, from declining church attendance to critical financial conditions in many parishes, which they say are being compounded by confusing messaging and little encouragement coming from the Vatican and bishops.
But they are also seeing signs of hope — especially among the young — as people are drawn to the beauty, truth and goodness of the faith and are beginning to demand from the Church reverent liturgies, sound doctrine, and a sense of stability and transcendence in a disordered world.
These were just some of the observations made by clergy from Australia, the U.S., the U.K. and Spain who spoke with the Register on the sidelines of the Third International Convocation of the Confraternities of Catholic Clergy that took place Jan. 13-17 in Rome.
Founded by American Father Robert Levis in 1975, the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy is a grassroots association of more than 500 Catholic priests worldwide that grew out of the post-conciliar turmoil of the 1970s.
“Many priests were leaving at the time, and so the confraternity was founded to encourage them to remain,” said Thomas McKenna, the confraternity’s executive director. “Since then, many clergy have said they owed their decision to remain a priest to the confraternity.”
About 75 priests attended the event that included talks from Cardinals Robert Sarah, Gerhard Müller and Raymond Burke.
Father Paul Chandler, parish priest of Inverell in the Archdiocese of Brisbane, Australia, said “one of the greatest challenges is the decline in faith,” leading to Mass attendance in some churches in his diocese dwindling to almost zero as “the older people die off and they’re not being replaced.”
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