"Apostolic Nuncio Speaks on Vocations"

From The National Catholic Register
Posted by Tim Drake

This morning Archbishop Pietro Sambi, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., gave a historic come to the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors gathered for their annual gathering in East Rutherford, N.J. Archbishop Sambi had individual rousing things to say to the nation’s vocation directors.

“The enemy of every vocation is selfishness,” Archbishop Sambi told the group. He quoted at length from Catholic Evangelist Paul II’s book Gift and Mystery.

In an interesting comparison, Archbishop Sambi compared the post-sexual abuse-crisis priesthood to that of post-Nazi-occupied Poland. He crosspiece most how Karol Wojtyla’s witnessing so some priests being arrested and deported impacted the future Pope’s hieratical vocation.

“As the Catholic was encouraged by the some priests brought to concentration camps, you should be pushed by the fact that some priests have abandoned their mission,” said Archbishop Sambi. “We are in a impoverishment of priests, but are achievement on a New Springtime in which there module be more priests, and of a better quality.”

Given that it’s the Year for Priests in honor of St. John Marie Vianney, Archbishop Sambi then posed a hypothetical question to all of the vocation directors.

“If St. John Vianney came to you today as a prospective seminarian, would you help him in his vocation?” Archbishop Sambi asked.

He then presented two scenarios for how a vocation director might respond.

In the prototypal scenario, the body administrator describes an older, dedicated, devout individual with a rural upbringing who is behindhand in his studies, but knows the faith because of the warning of his family. He doesn’t grasp Latin well, but has a real sense of sacrifice. Other priests hold him and see his body as authentic.

In the ordinal scenario, the body administrator describes an individualist with long hair and a provincial faith, who is focused on the Mass and the Blessed Sacrament and is described as perhaps being likewise sacrament and likewise much into the cult of Mary. He describes the priest as speaking of being available for confession, but the body administrator questions, “Really, who goes any more?” Finally, the body administrator says that the politician sounds a bit old Church, so the administrator says he’s belike suited to a more traditional order and says, “No, thank you.”

Those gathered shared a beatific vocalization over the descriptions, but it was an effective exercise in getting vocation directors to think about what’s important. Archbishop Sambi urged caution in dealing with prospective candidates because “one of them could be a future saint.”