Reasons priestly vocations are plummeting in Rome and beyond

Father Fabio Rosini: 'There is little to rejoice about'

A few hours after the ordination of 11 priests in the Basilica of St John Lateran, the director of the Vocations Service of the Vicariate of Rome explains that "it is not vocations that are lacking, it is not seminarians that are in short supply, but the great absentees are Christians in general".

Roman by birth, a priest for 32 years, and for 12 years in charge of the vocations pastoral ministry of the Vicariate of Rome, Father Fabio Rosini knows well the 'terrain' of the diocese where 'the harvest is abundant, but the labourers are few! That of the vocation to the priesthood is 'a challenge' that he has been facing for so long and on which he has spoken dozens of times with articles, meetings and comparisons. On the eve of the ordination of eleven new priests for the diocese, he reflects that, based on the numbers, 'there is little to rejoice about'. Without mincing words, he explains that if in Rome, the heart of Catholic Christianity, a city of over three million inhabitants divided into some 340 parishes, only eleven priests are ordained in a year, considering the increase in the average age of priests and all the priests who reach the age of 75 years finishing their service, "it means that in a few years we will no longer have enough priests for the parishes". That of vocations in the Eternal City is not a new problem for Father Rosini, who points out that "historically Rome has always had few vocations". The problem, however, is not so much a lack of "labourers in the vineyard of the Lord" but an historical misreading of the situation, "the endemic error" that the diocese has been dragging out for years, namely that of "doping" the numbers of seminarians by welcoming non-Roman candidates. Even today, many young men want to come to Rome to become priests, "but one has to doubt this type of self-presentation, suspecting that the basis is not love for Christ and the desire to follow Him, but rather the thought of 'making a career' or, if one comes from poor countries, 'to settle down professionally'," he explains. "In the 1960s, it was the dioceses that sent some candidates, as an ecclesial generosity, and that is why even today, in the midst of the more mature generation, finding a Roman priest is rare. And while this is positive, because it is these vocations from "outside the diocese" that still today "keep the diocese on its feet", on the other hand one must come to terms with the fact that "the lack of Roman vocations manifests the state of a sterile Church". Using a metaphor, Father Fabio Rosini explains that in Rome it is not the fish to be caught that are lacking but it is the very water in which the fish should swim that is lacking. "When I became in charge of this service, in 2011, I tried to understand the real numbers and discovered that in the parishes the youth groups were made up, on average, of no more than a dozen young people," says the director of the Vocations Service of the Vicariate of Rome. "It is clear that it is not vocations that are lacking, it is not seminarians that are lacking, but the great absentees are Christians in general. 

So it was not vocations that were lacking but the people of God. For the priest, over the years there has been a risk of 'continuing to do a vocations pastoral that sought to specialise a non-existent material and was not concerned with growing the people of God. We have continued to take faith for granted and the consequence is that there are no vocations. It is necessary to proclaim the Gospel, to form Christians,' he concludes. 'Christianity is not an ethics, it is not a philosophy, as Pope Benedict XVI has said many times and as Pope Francis reiterates today. In order to get out of the impasse, the recipe proposed by Fr Fabio is to start again from the Gospel proclamation, to review the approach of the catechism of Christian initiation which "continues to have a scholastic and not an existential model", to bring the centre of the kerygma back to the families: "the real seminaries". The people of God, adds Fr Fabio, "has not grown because the family has collapsed as an instance of Christian education. The liturgical year, which is the true path shared by all ecclesial realities, has collapsed in homes where fasting in Lent is no longer done and where Christmas has become a pagan event separated from an experience of prayer. It is necessary to make a pastoral care of families ad hoc, because if boys come from truly Christian families in which we pray, train in service and forgiveness, then yes, we will have excellent priests. But if we do not start from a personal encounter with Christ we will not have Christians and therefore we will have fewer and fewer priests. Christian families must be formed. We are in a cultural flood and it is time to build an ark, which was then a boat of couples". The priest then recalls the need to form married couples and to train families to be, as they are sacramentally, small churches that serve as the best places for formation. This is why last year he greeted "with sympathy" the initiative of Pope Francis to publish, on the occasion of the Year "Family Amoris Laetitia", the document of the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life "Catechumenal Itineraries for married life". "Those who prepare for marriage," Fr Fabio concludes, "prepare themselves to build a small church. From these families can come a new generation of priests.

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