In 2004, 41 priests were ordained in all of Ireland. The U.S. had 533
ordinations last year. The average age of priests in the U.S. is 60.
April 22, 2005
In Casoni, Italy, Most People Have A Priest in the Family
Small Town Has Produced Far More Than Its Share;
Seminary School at Age 11
By GABRIEL KAHN in Casoni, Italy, and KRISTINE M. CRANE in Rome
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Across Europe and the U.S., the Catholic Church is desperately seeking
priests to staff its parishes. Then there's Casoni. Nestled near the
mountains 62 miles west of Venice, this town of 3,300 has produced
bumper crops of priests, monks and nuns for decades.
The Rev. Antonio Zanon, who is 87 years old, grew up there as one of
seven brothers. Six became priests. The brother who didn't join the
priesthood married and had children. His only son, Salvino, 39,
recently became a priest, too.
Father Zanon recalls walking with his father to a nearby town to enroll
in a seminary there. He was only about 12 years old at the time. "They
said, 'We already have three of your brothers in here. There is no room
for you.' " With the help of his parish priest, he was able to find a
spot in another seminary.
By the 1980s, one of every 30 people born in Casoni became a priest,
according to figures from the diocese. Today, the ratio is about one in
80, and most people in town have at least someone in their immediate
family who has taken vows as a priest or a nun. Paola Dalle Frate was
one of 11 children, including one priest and two nuns. She never took
vows, but among her first cousins, numbering more than 40, 10 have
joined religious orders or are priests.
"It was a gift from God then to have a child who became a priest or a
nun," she says.
Though ordinations here have fallen off in the past few decades, as
they have across Italy, Casoni still produces more than its share of
priests. One was ordained in 2000, another is due to be ordained next
year, and a third just entered a seminary.
Casoni's numbers are enviable when compared to certain other bastions
of Catholicism. In 2004, for instance, 41 priests were ordained in all
of Ireland, compared with 194 in 1990 and 394 in 1980. The U.S. had 533
ordinations last year, a 21% increase from 2003, but down from 771 in
1975. The average age of priests in the U.S. is 60, according to one
study, and the average age at ordination -- now 37 -- is also rising,
meaning that careers are shorter. Over the past three decades, the
number of Catholics in the U.S. has grown to about 67 million, from
approximately 48 million in 1974, keeping pace with population growth.
The U.S. population in 1974 and 2004 was 23% Catholic.
Affluence and greater professional opportunities have drawn men away
from the priesthood across the Northern Hemisphere. "If you're a young
man between age 25 and 30 in the U.S., and you're serious, you have
many options, none of which require celibacy or a lifetime commitment,"
says Dean Hoge, a sociology professor at Catholic University in
Washington, D.C. "If you're a young man living in Congo or Ghana, you
don't have those choices. Probably the only way that you can go to
college is if you go to seminary." The number of priests in Africa more
than tripled between 1978 and 2002.
In the West, plummeting ordinations represent a crisis for the church,
which is straining to minister to the faithful. In Forest, Miss., in
the diocese of Jackson, the Rev. Richard Smith, who is 53, says as many
as 12 Masses a week in three languages, traveling a circuit of 500
miles to reach remote parishes no longer served by a local priest.
He relies on a few volunteers to help him organize his schedule. To
stay upbeat, he says, he tries to exercise every day, toting his
vestments in his gym bag. "Priests are stretched to their limits," he
said in a phone interview, while en route to his next Mass. "I just got
back from a funeral 50 miles away. I couldn't be with those people in a
moment of mourning. I cannot apply the pastoral care that I learned in
seminary. I can't be three places at once."
With no reinforcements on the way, Father Smith's work isn't about to
get any easier. Mr. Hoge of Catholic University says that for every 100
priests who retire, seminaries in the U.S. are producing between 30 and
40 replacements. Nuns, monks and other lay people are taking up some of
the slack. But there is a debate within the church about how much the
duties of these lay ministers -- who cannot lead Mass, perform
marriages or other sacraments -- should be expanded.
Italy has suffered a drop as well, but not as severe as those elsewhere
in Europe. In 2002, there were 498 priests ordained in Italy, down from
554 in 1981. At the diocese of Treviso, which includes Casoni, the
seminary is churning out enough priests to serve its parishes.
"I am not worried at the moment," says Casoni native Msgr. Severo Dalle
Frate, the chancellor of the Treviso diocese and a cousin of Ms. Dalle
Frate.
In the period just after World War II, this patch of Italy was
desperately poor, and joining the priesthood was often the only way for
boys to continue their studies past elementary school and thus escape a
life of toil in the fields. Msgr. Dalle Frate insists that poverty
wasn't the only thing that made Casoni into such a prolific producer of
priests. "People used to say that people joined the priesthood out of
hunger. If that were true, all the towns around here would have churned
out more priests."
Casoni, he says, was special. Its prodigious number of vocations, he
says, was a matter of civic pride. He remembers how each summer in
Casoni, seminarians from the local diocese would challenge rivals from
a nearby religious order to see who could recruit more prospective
priests. Religious life was part of the fabric of the town. "Young
people would meet in the morning at the church for Mass," says Msgr.
Dalle Frate. "In the afternoon, they would come back to pray in
groups." The church, he recalls, and especially the charismatic local
parish priest, were always the center of activity in the town.
That made Msgr. Dalla Frate yearn for the priesthood as well, even if
it meant entering the seminary at age 11, and not seeing his parents
for six months.
Elements of that culture survive in Casoni. The Rev. Paolo Marconato,
the parish priest, remains one of the leading citizens of the town. He
says he must hold four separate Masses in order to accommodate
everyone. The vaunted status of the local priest continues to attract
young men in Casoni to the profession.
"I chose this route because of the figure of the parish priest. That's
what attracted me," says Corrado Ferronato, 32, who is on track to be
ordained next year.
No one in Casoni blinks when a young man makes it his career choice.
"No one tried to put a wrench in my spokes," says Mr. Ferronato.
"Around here, the life of the church is the air that you breathe."
Last year, seven boys from the parish participated in an annual,
one-day-per-month program at the seminary in Treviso of prayer,
discussions and soccer matches. The program is meant to introduce life
at the seminary and make boys think about a religious vocation.
Massimiliano Giacobbo, a lanky 11-year-old, came back from the program
last year and asked his parents whether he could enroll in the
seminary. His mother and father, though strong Catholics, were taken
aback. "We didn't say yes at once," says Antonio Giacobbo, his father.
"It was important to understand what was motivating him."
Massimiliano, dressed in sneakers, jeans and a baseball T-shirt, said
he was attracted by the collegial atmosphere, the contact with the
priests, as well as the soccer and volleyball matches, which he says
are more competitive than those at Casoni. He is about to complete his
first year and plans to return in the fall. Living away from home at
such a young age was difficult the first week, he says, but he soon got
used to it.
There are 38 other students in his class, aged 11 to 13. Another 24 are
in the high-school program. But the course of study is long, requiring
at least six years after high school, and not all the students finish.
His parents have also gotten over their reservations. "We like the fact
that he is on a path in which he will be asking himself questions,"
says Massimiliano's mother, Mara. "Then, if he decides that this is his
vocation, it will be a joy for us."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
.
|
