Fr. Dwight Longenecker: What Shall We Do with the Convert Clergy?

The Anglican Ordinariate may well help to solve the vocations crisis.These priests will also be authorized to celebrate Mass according to the Latin rite.
By Fr Dwight Longenecker
2/1/2010

GREENVILLE (Catholic Online) - Some time ago I attended a conference for Catholic priests. As a married, former Anglican priest, I felt honored and humbled to be numbered among them. The topic of our conference was the vocations crisis, and I could not help but notice that I was one of the younger priests, and I am in my early fifties. It is not enough to look forward and say that in a few years we will have a crisis in vocations.

We already have a crisis in vocations. Where will we get the priests we need to serve the American church? One of the solutions is to bring priests in from other countries. Already priests are helping us from Africa, India, Poland and South America. But is it really fair to take priests from the developing world? In his book Future Church, John Allen points out that while the seminaries are full in countries like Nigeria, they still are not producing enough priests for the exploding Catholic population in their own country. the rest