"Springtime of Vatican II" Update

Ireland Running out of Priests

by Christopher A. Ferrara

        The New York Times of July 11 contains a story on how Ireland "once an exporter of priests, now has too few." After forty years of the "renewal of Vatican II," ladies and gentlemen, Ireland — the very cradle of the Catholic priesthood in the Western world — is suffering a priest shortage.

        As the Times reports, in all of Ireland a grand total of eight seminarians are to be ordained in 2004, compared with 193 ordinations in 1990. The Diocese of Dublin, Ireland’s largest, plans no ordinations for next year.

        In 1970, there were 750 candidates seeking to enter the priesthood or a religious order. Today? How about 39! As a result, among Ireland’s remaining 3,238 diocesan priests the average age is 60 — so that, in about 10-15 years, most of the Irish priesthood will vanish.

        Now, of course, the neo-modernist Church-wreckers who have produced this debacle are the very ones offering a "solution." Liberals are always prescribing cures for the diseases they cause — and the cure is always more liberalism. Thus, Fr. Eammon Fitzgibbon, director of the pastoral center in Limerick, declares "we are being given a chance to explore a new way of being a church. There is no option now." Uh, excuse me, but for the past forty years we have seen "a new way of being a church" and the results are a total disaster.

        But this what liberals always do when they destroy something — they insist that there is "no option" but to let them continue with their destruction. Meanwhile, an ordinary parishioner by the name of Mr. Blake accurately assesses the schemes of people like Fr. Eammon to make the Irish Church still more "modern" in Her orientation: "It’s a bit like we’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, and we don’t realize the ship is sinking. For so long we’ve been part of this huge organization, and that’s disappearing."

        The Church in Ireland would be restored in short order if the Irish bishops returned to the traditions of the Faith. The explosive growth in vocations in every order based upon the traditional Latin Mass and sacraments and the traditional formation in seminaries demonstrates that. But these traditional orders remain a tiny minority within a clerical establishment that seems determined to destroy itself, while brutally suppressing any sign of a return to Tradition.

        And yet the same prelates who preside over the devastation of the vineyard still speak of the "renewal" brought about by Vatican II. What are we witnessing if not a form of mass insanity within the Catholic hierarchy?

        No wonder Sister Lucy was so terrified about the contents of the Third Secret that she would not even commit it to paper without a direct order from her bishop — and even then had to struggle to obey. She knew what was coming in Ireland and the rest of the Church following the Second Vatican Council. And now we are living the fulfillment of that dreadful prophecy. May Our Lady of Fatima intercede to restore Her Church.