Vatican - Bishops, Get Ready: The Amazon Fake-Synod Bomb is Coming Up! (Confidential Letter)

"...with the guidance of the Holy Spirit..."

Vatican City, 13 January 2020

Your Eminence, Your Grace, Your Excellency:

The Holy Father is preparing a new Apostolic Exhortation to present the New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology as developed with the guidance of the Holy Spirit during the Synod on the Amazon in October last year.

The draft is currently being reviewed and corrected and then needs to be translated. Pope Francis hopes to promulgate it by the end of this month or in early February.

The “Eighth Sorrow” of Our Blessed Mother

For the feast of the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady, we present to readers an excerpt from the book In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart—The Journal of a Priest at Prayer, which has featured here before.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Yes, my beloved little son, the eighth sorrow of my maternal and Immaculate Heart is that my Son is so offended in the Sacrament of His love. This sorrow of mine will endure until the end of time, when the real presence of my Son in the Most Holy Sacrament will give way to the sight of His divine majesty. Then will faith give way to vision, and hope to possession. Then will love be secure and everlasting for all who will have died in the embrace of His divine friendship. 

Two Fine New Reprints of Works by Msgr. Joseph Clifford Fenton

I am pleased to announce, once again, reprints from Cluny that deserve the attention of thoughtful traditional Catholics everywhere, especially in seminaries and house of formation. Please note that these editions are not mere facsimiles but entirely and handsomely re-typeset. What follows is based on the press release from the publisher.

Monsignor Joseph Clifford Fenton represents the faithful, orthodox, and learned theological voice for which so many Catholics today are searching. Msgr. Fenton completed his theological studies before the Second Vatican Council (completing his doctorate in sacred theology under Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P., in Rome). He would also go on to serve the Council in the capacity of theological peritus. Indeed, in his person and in his work, Msgr. Fenton represents something very close to what Joseph Ratzinger would later express as the “hermeneutic of continuity.”

Vatican releases latest worldwide Catholic statistics:Decrease in the overall share of Catholics in the world population. Fall in priests, seminarians and religious continues unabated

The Vatican Bollettino for June 13, 2018 has a report (only in Italian as of this writing) about the publication of the Pontifical Yearbook for 2018 and the Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2016, containing the statistics for the Catholic Church worldwide as of the end of the year 2016. 

The earliest reports appearing on the Catholic media about this report focus on the increase in the absolute number of baptized Catholics from the end of 2015 to the end of 2016 -- from 1,285,000,000 to 1,299,000,000. The Bollettino's actual report however has the sobering observation that the increase in Catholics from 2015 to 2016 is lower than the annual increase recorded in the period from 2010 to 2015. Additionally, the rate of growth of the worldwide Catholic population is slower than that of the world's population as a whole, with the result that the percentage of Catholics in the world population dropped from 17.73 % in 2015 to 17.67 in 2016. 

When it comes to priests, the trend of diminishment since 2014 is confirmed: there were 414,969 Catholic priests in the whole world as of the end of 2016, compared to 415,656 priests in 2015 and  415,792 in 2014.

Latest statistics: seminarians down in the USA and the world, priests worldwide in decline, catastrophic decline in women religious Will vocations survive the new Bergoglian priestly formation document?

I. World Statistics 

Last month, the Vatican website published a report on the Pontifical Yearbook 2016 and Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae 2015, with a detailed summary of the statistics contained in the latter. Compared to the Vatican's summaries of the information in the Annuarium Statisticum published in previous years (see this for 2014, published in 2016; read here for 2013, published in 2015), last month's summary has much more detail, and for this we are very grateful.

The summary notes that "In 2015 there is decline in the number of priests from the previous year, thus reversing the upward trend that characterized the years from 2000 to 2014." To be exact, there were 415,656 priests in 2015, compared to 415,792 in 2014. (Looking into reports from previous years we find that there were 405,178 priests in 2000 -- when the upward trend began again -- 406,411 in 2005, 408,024 in 2007, 412,236 in 2010, and 414,313 in 2012.) Tellingly the decline from 2014 to 2015, while slight, is attributed to the decrease in the number of priests in Europe (less 2,502) outweighing the increases in the rest of the world (up by 2,366). Although the Vatican report does not mention it, it is no secret that very large numbers of European and North American clergy are in the age range of late 70's to 90's, which explains why the official statistics for priests in Europe and North America have little to do with the actual (and much reduced) number of priests available for, or capable of, pastoral duties on the ground. As these priests -- the last of those ordained in the period between 1945 and 1965 --continue to die off in even greater numbers due to illness and extreme old age within the next decade or so, we expect that the negative effect on worldwide priesthood numbers will become even more pronounced. (According to the summary, priests in Europe account for 43% of priests worldwide.)

As for major seminarians, the downward trend is confirmed: there are "in 2015 there was a total of 116,843 major seminarians, up (sic) from 116,939 in 2014; 118,251 in 2013; 120,051 in 2012; 120,616 in 2011 and 118,990 in 2010". We already noted the beginnings of this decline in a post last year. This trend towards decline seems set to continue, with the number of major seminarians now declining continuously in Europe, "in all areas of America" (which would include Latin America), in the Middle East, and in South East Asia, where, it is noted, "the initial growth ended in 2012 (+ 4.5% compared to 2010), and was followed by a marked decline which brought the number of major seminarians in 2015 at a level 1.6% less than the maximum of 2012". The same phenomenon is noted regarding Oceania: "the highest figure was recorded in 2012, followed by continuous decline – the number of seminarians in 2015 was 6.9% lower than in 2012". Only Africa is bucking the trend with an increase of 7.7% for major seminarians between 2010 and 2015.

For the record, the Centurio blog published a short study in 2014 which already forecast that there will be 323,000 priests worldwide by 2050, based on the trends of 2012 (when there were 414,313 priests) continuing. 

For the record - In latest interview, Pope attacks "rigidity" in seminaries and in priestly formation. Are seminaries soon to be targeted for "reform" by Francis?

 St. Francis Seraphic Seminary, Andover, MA. Closed as a seminary in the 1970's, finally demolished in October 2016.

It is extremely difficult to keep up with the unending barrage of words from Pope Francis. One interview after another, press conferences, speeches, letters, phone calls, off-the-cuff remarks, daily homilies... the endless flow of words results in people knowing not so much what the Pope has exactly said on this or that topic, but rather the general run of this Pope's thinking and the main themes of his stated policies. Rather than being a sign of Francis' sloppiness, a case can be made that this is an excellent strategy. Liberal would-be reformers, who tend not to bother with exactitude, make use of the very strong impressions left by Francis without being tied down by his exact words. Meanwhile some "conservatives" still remain hesitant to call out Francis precisely because they are obsessed with nailing down exactly what Francis said on each particular occasion, and in trying to find excuses for these while dismissing as "misinterpretations" nearly anything that would force them to face the facts.