Vocations
directors see signs of hope across Canada
By Deborah Gyapong
Canadian
Catholic News
OTTAWA (CCN) — With priestly abuse scandals dominating the news,
you might think a diocesan vocation director’s job is a lot of
lonely, heavy slogging.
According
to Rev. John Lemire, there’s an idea out there
that vocations directors “must be these miserable guys”
bearing a terrible burden.
But Lemire, who heads the
Diocesan Vocations Directors of Canada, a loose association of English-speaking
priests across Canada, reported a spirit of joy among priests like himself
whose bishops have given them a special role in their dioceses.
About 30 priests from across
Canada met for five days in Ottawa May 31 to June 4 for fellowship,
to participate in faith formation and share ideas.
“There is a real sense
of hope about the priesthood and about the call to be inviters and promoters
of vocations,” said Lemire, who has been a vocations director
for 12 years in the Timmins diocese.
The pastor of Our Mother
of Perpetual Help in New Liskeard, Lemire said the vocations directors
are finding the young and not so young men they are working with “are
not afraid to be men of holiness and of service to Christ and to others.”
Working in a northern Ontario
diocese, Lemire has faced particular challenges. The diocese has few
Catholic high schools — and only one is for English speakers.
There are no universities
and only one community college, leading a brain drain of young people
who go down south, he said. Yet with all those obstacles, he has had
five men in the last 10 years actively enter into discernment about
the priesthood.
Three since found their vocation
in married life, he said, but one, a man of 60, became a priest after
retiring from the post office. The other is still in the process of
discerning.
Rev. Joseph Phuong Nguyen
anticipates the opposite problem in Vancouver, where Archbishop Michael
Miller just appointed him to the job.
He said he was grateful for the networking opportunity and to hear ways
to promote vocations and work with young people. Recently, two new priests
and a deacon were ordained in the archdiocese.
“As you know we welcome
so many immigrants,” Nguyen said. “The need of the church
is so great.
The archdiocese has had to import priests from countries like India and the Philippines to meet the needs of the growing Catholic population, and ask for priests from Victoria to help. But he expected priestly vocations will grow inside these communities and already sees signs of this happening.
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