Why oh why, O Lord, are thy servants so very dumb?
So very, very dumb?
Cartoon to tempt teenagers into priesthood
The Church hopes that its manga comic, with pictures of nuns and monks playing pool and surfing the internet, will help to improve the image of the vocation, which leaders believe is seen as "monotonous and boring".
The minimum age to enter a seminary is 18, but children as young as 10 are being targeted by the recruitment drive, which is encouraging them to consider life as a parish priest or in a religious order.
Aaughh!!
OK, I'm going to tell you poor halfwits once and I'm going to use small words so you can turn them into txtmsging more easily.
Let me tell you why the cartoon "campaign" isn't going to work. For the same reason the guitars and tambourines and PeterPauln'Mary music ended up with a stampede of Catholics out of the Church and into evangelical churches and the New Age movement:
BECAUSE IT'S STUPID.
It's stupid, it's silly, it trivializes not only the ancient Faith, but the lives and problems and sufferings of the people who are actually seeking God.
Oh crumbs. Why can't they get it?
Fr Paul Embery, the Church's Director of Vocations, admitted that persuading
teenagers to commit to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience was not an easy
sell, but said that the Church was desperate to reach younger candidates for
ordination.
"The Church was desperate to reach younger candidates"...
Then give them the Faith. Can't be all that desperate can ye? Can't be so desperate that you would actually stoop to trying the religious approach?
It's very simple really. The Catholics don't have the Faith. Tough to get vocations out of them when they're not Catholic in any way but a name on a baptismal register.
For forty years, you've given them warm blacmange, Hallmark greeting card mottoes and hugs instead of the answers they wanted. Why is this so very difficult for them to understand? Do they really expect to get vocations to the priesthood and religious life from people who don't know why they ought to believe in God? What sort of people are they trying to attract?
oh. wait. I get it.
People like themselves.
"We realise that this kind of commitment is counter-cultural. It requires great
sacrifice, and a lot of people see it as monotonous and boring, but actually it
is an extremely fulfilling job," he said.
"an extremely fulfilling job."
Ok. I've got it.
Of course. We dumped the icky and offputting religious part of Catholicism. That sort of stuff was a downer man. The kids don't groove to it. You gotta meet them where they are, man. You gotta talk to them about fulfillment.
Ugh.
3 comments:
Yesterday the homily ended with a strong appeal to "young people who might by thinking of the priesthood" and a description by Fr. Preacher of why he's loved being a priest for 50 years: because no other profession would have give me so much of a chance to be involved in people's lives...
The first half of the homily was about Christ's universal call to all of us everywhere to be shepherds. Everyone is a shepherd. Caring for each other is being a shepherd. It's a very difficult role!
Oh and we prayed for vocations: "to the priesthood, to the religious life, and to lay ministry in the Church" – all at once, one Petition of the Faithful.
I hope my son doesn't have a vocation, because I couldn't encourage him to act on it when these are the terms of reference. Nothing sacramental, nothing unique, nothing particularly challenging. Priesthood is just doing full-time what everyone else should do when they can.
The fact that it's manga doesn't mean it's stupid - in fact, communicating the Faith via the manga style/format of art is a fine idea, for someone who could do it. (This guide might be stupid based on content, of course.)
The best advertisement I've seen lately for young people to consider the priesthood was the young man in our homeschool co-op, a senior, who just did an amazing Richard in their presentation of Richard III. He's number three of seven kids in that family, and is headed to seminary this fall. We were all chortling over the irony of how well he played the villain.
Come to think of it, the only young seminarians I bump into from the circles I move in would be from those big homeschooling families ...
peace,
Zach, dear fellow, faithful reader, you're an Anglican. Shut up.
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