Dr. Matthew Bunson begins guest blog series on The History of the Priesthood

(Posted by guest blogger Dr. Matthew Bunson)

Jerry Usher is a man with ideas. He first told me one of his biggest ideas almost two years ago when he came to town to anchor the Sharathon for Redeemer Radio, the local Catholic radio station. The idea was so large that we started talking about it at lunch and then kept discussing it over dinner at a local Chinese restaurant (Jerry and I both happily eat Chinese food).

We had been talking about vocations for a long time, certainly since one of my earliest appearances on Catholic Answers Live, but it was at lunch that he first used the name Vocationboom.com. Jerry described his vision for a website that could offer advice, inspiration, and help to men discerning a vocation to the priesthood.

What struck me immediately about his idea was his commitment to a global vision for the site. He wanted Vocation Boom! to be a place where any man wondering whether Christ might actually be calling him could find some answers to both complicated and very practical questions. It was a concept that immediately elicited my support and my promise to help in any way that I could.

In the end, the site that was created flows from a love of the Church and a simple understanding that vocations are the concern not just for Church officials, not just for priests, religious, and nuns. They need to be a concern for all of us. As St. John Vianney once declared to his parishioners: “Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put him there in that tabernacle? The priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest. Who will prepare it to appear before God, bathing it one last time in the blood of Jesus Christ? The priest, always the priest. And if this soul should happen to die [as a result of sin], who will raise it up, who will restore its calm and peace? Again, the priest… After God, the priest is everything! … Only in heaven will he fully realize what he is.” (“Le Sacerdoce, c’est l’amour du cœur de Jésus,” in Le curé d’Ars. Sa pensée – Son cœur. Présentés par l’Abbé Bernard Nodet, éd. Xavier Mappus, Foi Vivante, 1966, pp. 98-99).

Currently, there are some 408,000 priests in the world, and some 115,000 seminarians. With a population of 1.14 billion Catholics, the numbers seem miniscule in comparison. They become even more remarkable when we look at where vocations are literally booming and where they are still flat. New priests and seminarians are found in growing numbers in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, while the seminaries are still struggling in North America and Europe. It is true that vocations are picking up in the United States, with several diocese or archdioceses having the largest ordination classes since the 1960’s, but the reality is we need more priests.

So, there are very good reasons to think globally.

Catholics across the United States are growing used to hearing their priests speaking with accents. Only a while ago, Americans spent a century listening to Irish and German accents, now we are hearing priests with Nigerian, South African, Filipino, and Chinese inflections. They are a permanent feature of life for the foreseeable future, so our support of vocations around the world is not merely some act of charity to a distant region and that will never have relevance to our own lives.

Our priests may come from Africa or China or the United States, but one thing remains: every priest has been called by God to live in persona Christi – in the person of Christ – and has received a permanent mark on his soul. He is empowered to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass and so give to the members of the Church the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Eucharist.

Every priest, regardless of where he is from has received the sacrament of holy orders that was first instituted by Christ at the Last Supper when he offered his body and blood under the appearance of bread and wine and commanded the disciples, “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk 22:19). He has given a yes to Christ’s call and is worthy of our prayers and our support.

Which brings me back to Jerry, dinner at the Chinese restaurant, and Vocation Boom!. When I told Jerry that I would help in any way that I could, he very kindly accepted my offer. One of the things that he asked was for me to write for the website. He especially wanted me to help visitors learn more about the history of the priesthood, the Church around the world, and the challenges that Catholics are facing under Islamic regimes, oppressive African and South American governments, and even in Western Europe. So, over the next months, I have the honor of writing a little for this blog on these topics.

I had the privilege of attending an ordination yesterday for two young men in our local cathedral. Afterward, at a reception in their honor, I recorded interviews with the new priests, their families, and others for Redeemer Radio. I was struck in talking with several priests about their own ordination day, (some were ordained a few years back and others, a very long time ago) how they remembered a sense of unworthiness and shock that they had actually been found worthy by the Church to be ordained priests. As they looked at the two young men lying on the floor of the cathedral as part of the ordination rite, they were reminded that they had not been worthy of the incredible gift of the priesthood, but Christ had called them, had chosen them, and had made them worthy.

VocationBoom.com is here to help young men from every walk of life to realize that the priesthood is not so implausible. If you have been called by Christ there are many people eager to help you discern what He wants you to do and to make the right decision for your future. Above all, Vocation Boom! wants to remind you that if you are pondering what God wants for your life, you are not alone in trying to figure it out.

And if you still really have a hard time picturing yourself a priest, please read my next blog. You will meet the priest I quoted above, a man who was mocked as the most unlikely candidate for holy orders in his entire country. All he did was become a saint and the patron for all priests.

See you next month.

Matthew E. Bunson, M.Div., D.Min.