Pastor's Notes - 04/28/2019

I want to thank you for your generosity
to the Retired Priest collection last weekend. 

Currently, there are 89 priests who are retired and 20 of them still live in a parish helping out, like Fr. Berni at St. Gertrude and Fr. Don at Our Lady of Lourdes.  There are only 221 priests who are still active for 179 parishes in the Archdiocese. 

Our concern is for the future with the lack of priests.  It has been several years since we here at St. Francis Borgia have had anyone in the seminary or convent for religious life.  It is true that we have been blessed with men responding to the Diaconate. 

There are some deacons running parishes currently in the Archdiocese like St. Robert Bellarmine in St. Charles and St. Andrews in South County.  The vocation director in the Archdiocese had asked a few years ago that every parish within the next 10 years have a young man go to the seminary.  We have taken our students to Focus 11 (day on religious vocations) with the Archdiocese and our 8 ^th graders have visited the seminary.  So far, we have not had anyone follow through on deciding to go to the seminary. 

One of the social factors which is heard at the seminary is that there is not a lot of encouragement from the parents.  Parents are having few children, thus a less possibility of having grandchildren.  So some young men are being discouraged because of that. The whole scandal of the Church about clergy abuse also adds to the negative impact on vocations.  This is the reality that you and I live in.

 Please keep praying for vocations to religious life and priesthood. Thanks for all you do to make the Risen Lord known in our community.