An article discussing with complete frankness and accuracy the afflictions of the Church in France and elsewhere – including the United States.
“The reasons (for the growing threat of bankruptcy) are the decline of the church collection – the absolute amount increases slightly but the number of donors decreases and ages – but also the decline in religious practice, the decline of vocations to the priesthood, the aging of the clergy… One could also mention the grand projects initiated by the dioceses in the last few years: the building of diocesan houses, the reconfiguration of cathedrals…
(Due to the lack of clergy the dioceses are forced to hire laymen paid at much higher salaries)
“The difficulties of the dioceses are anything but trivial. The root is found in the general collapse of spirituality and of the Faith in France. With the percentage of practicing Catholics at only 8% – 3% in the center and south-west – the terrible misery of the French church can no longer be hidden….”
“Beyond the financial situation of the dioceses the most general problem – which will doom a number of dioceses in the middle term – is the lack of priests. There were 50,000 priests in 1970, 25,203 in 1990, 13,822 in 2011 and there will be 6,000 in 2020. Around 130 priests are ordained each year but eight times that number leave the priesthood because of old age or death.”
“Among the principal places where the seeds of vocations (still) are found: families, parishes, scouting – but also new communities like Taize or Emmanuel – and also those who adhere to Tradition, that is, the Tridentine mass. Everywhere in France the Tridentine parishes fill their churches and raise up vocations. In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI reinserted the Tridentine rite into the normal framework of the liturgy (Motu Proprio), which permitted it to be made generally available in a number of dioceses. A great number of traditionalists returned to the Church. Only five dioceses still resist, under the pressure of priest more in rupture with tradition of the Church than elsewhere. Should one be surprised that among them one finds the bishopric of Mende – under a suspended sentence (of bankruptcy) – and the neighboring bishopric of Viviers, where vocations have collapsed and where the ancient Grand Seminary of Viviers is nothing more than a huge ghost ship?”
Thanks to “Le Forum Catholique.”
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