Many dioceses in the western world are experiencing a severe shortage of priests and religious. Buffalo, NY, the diocese I reside in, is a prime example. In 2012 we had 173 priests, but by 2024 that number was down to 115. It is predicted that by 2030 there will be 70, and by 2040 the number will be down to an unfathomable 38 priests.
In colonial days before the diocese was founded, the Faith was kept alive by the laity itself. Before there was even a regular traveling priest assigned to the region, Catholics held the torch by teaching, praying, and keeping the liturgical calendar in their homes and communities.
Frontier days aren’t usually described by words like crisis, but practicing the Catholic Faith was banned from the then-British province of New York, and with no priest nor church building, a crisis it was. As time went on, Catholicism was no longer outlawed, but practicing it required long waits between priestly visits. The laity persevered, and we are all in their debt. Today we have freedom to practice our Faith; we have a diocese, bishop, priests, religious, and churches. Yet this is a time of crisis just the same.
Our Decision to Make
The word crisis, from the Greek krisis meaning “decision,” conveys trouble, but let’s not miss this idea of decision. As members of the laity, we are invited to decide to take our turn holding the torch for the next generation, just as our forbearers did long ago.
Presciently, the Second Vatican Council addressed the challenges of the twenty-first century in their document Apostolicam Actuositatem: On the Apostolate of the Laity. This document set out to encourage the laity to step into their God-given role and responsibility to carry the torch. While we are not called to usurp the responsibilities of priests and religious, each of us is called to be a Christ-bearer in the world:
On all Christians therefore is laid the preeminent responsibility of working to make the divine message of salvation known and accepted by all men throughout the world.
As we see our priests and religious stretched thin by their duties, we pray for their courage, strength, and perseverance. We also trust that God provides the labor for the ripening fields. He provides that labor through us. We can be certain that God is not worrying about how the torch is going to be handed down during a priest shortage. Divine Providence never fails. The question that remains is, are we being responsive to the Holy Spirit’s call by being good stewards of our gifts and talents? Do we generously give time and effort towards the development of our spiritual life?
This plan for the spiritual life of the laity should take its particular character from their married or family state or their single or widowed state, from their state of health, and from their professional and social activity. They should not cease to develop earnestly the qualities and talents bestowed on them in accord with these conditions of life, and they should make use of the gifts which they have received from the Holy Spirit…As far as possible the laity ought to provide helpful collaboration for every undertaking sponsored by their local parish (and) develop an ever-increasing appreciation of their own diocese…
If we decide to respond, we will fulfill our call to bear the torch in this time of crisis.
Crisis/Decision/Danger-Turning Point
The Chinese word for crisis is made up of two characters; the first translates to “danger,” and the second roughly to “turning point.” This has been simplified popularly as “danger-opportunity” but more accurately refers to:
A serious situation at a turning point, where the outcome is uncertain and potentially disastrous…carries a sense of gravity and urgency, combining the immediate feeling of peril with the understanding that this is a pivotal moment that will determine the future. (contextualchinese.com)
Though not as simple as “danger-opportunity,” this definition is more hopeful. Trusting that God has created us for this time, we can believe He has done so for good reason. To refer again to the Greek krisis, we can decide to live faithfully our life of prayer, sacraments, and community. In this decision we will live the danger-opportunity for the greater glory of God.
Springtime, But First, Crisis?
By living out the duties of our state in life, we will hold the torch in hope for the Church’s “new springtime” predicted by St. John Paul II. The laity plays an indispensable role in this fallow season before that springtime comes.
Pope Benedict XVI’s vision for the future of the Church seems to describe an intermediate season before St. John Paul II’s springtime, one that sees a contraction in the Church’s size and scope, but not in spirit:
From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge—a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity…As a small society, it will make much bigger demands on the initiative of her individual members…It will be hard going for the Church, for the process of crystallization and clarification will cost her much valuable energy. It will make her poor and cause her to become the Church of the meek…
But when the trial of this sifting is past, a great power will flow from a more spiritualized and simplified Church. Men in a totally planned world will find themselves unspeakably lonely. If they have completely lost sight of God, they will feel the whole horror of their poverty. Then they will discover the little flock of believers as something wholly new. They will discover it as a hope that is meant for them, an answer for which they have always been searching in secret.” (then Fr. Joseph Ratzinger, German radio broadcast, 1969)
This time of crisis will bear a great flowering in the New Springtime. Who might we model ourselves after as we work and await this springtime? In Apostolicam Actuositatem, the model for the laity is given as Our Lady:
The perfect example of this type of spiritual and apostolic life is the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Apostles, who while leading the life common to all here on earth, one filled with family concerns and labors, was always intimately united with her Son and in an entirely unique way cooperated in the work of the Savior.
In her fidelity to her vocation, Mary shows us the way to be of the most help to our Church and Our Lord. We have an opportunity to give glory to God, serve our neighbor, and become whom God created us to be. In so doing, we will carry the torch for the next generation who may experience that “new springtime,” where priestly and religious shortages are a thing of the past.
Blessed Mother, Queen of the Laity, pray for us!
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash
