Fewer Priests Reflect Lack of Masculine Role Models – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

Young men are simply not signing up to become priests — certainly not in the numbers that they used to. According to the Vatican’s Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae, the past 12 years have seen a continuing decline in the number of priestly vocations around the world. In 2023, there were only 106,495 major seminarians studying for the priesthood around the world, which is down from 108,481 in 2022. In fact, the number of men studying for the priesthood has dropped by nearly 12 percent since 2011: over half of that decline has occurred just since 2019. Why are so few men answering the call to the priesthood?

There are, of course, a number of factors likely at play, from the crippling effects of pervasive pornography to a general decline in Christian fervor in the West. One of the chief factors, however, is undoubtedly the dearth of masculinity being modeled for young men in the priesthood.

This is not to say that there are no good priests: there certainly are, and their vocations and spiritual fatherhood are blessings to the Catholic Church and, indeed, to the whole world. In the U.S. especially, an expanding cohort of priests is modeling faithfulness, courage, and piety for a new generation. But on a global scale, the image of the priest is one of frailty, stagnation, and either inaccessibility or an over-eagerness to “include,” resulting in the absence of any convictions. This image is most clearly visible in the bishops.

Particularly in the West, the vast majority of bishops have ceded their spiritual authority and abandoned the roles of “shepherd” and “father,” instead dedicating themselves to ambiguous “pastoral” activities and administrative enterprises. The polite platitude seems to have become the bishop’s favored mode of communication, exuding a stale aura of all that has come to replace Christian virtue in the modern age: welcoming and inclusion, diversity and equity, social justice and tolerance. These are not masculine qualities. While perversion, degeneracy, and evil wage an ever-more-aggressive war for the soul of the West, the bishops have set aside their croziers in favor of vague niceties, swapping the age-old words of the Saints for the garbled vernacular of the modern age.

Men are not inspired by this behavior. Men are and have been, instead, inspired by the lives of the Saints. The patron of priests, St. Jean Marie Vianney, is a paragon of masculine virtue and self-sacrifice. As the priest of a small parish in France, Vianney would not set aside 45 minutes on Wednesdays and Fridays to hear confessions, but would spend anywhere from 12 to 18 hours every single day hearing confessions.

Far from adopting the language of his time, Vianney recognized the moral relativism and indifference to eternity brought about by the French Revolution and often preached boldly against the Revolution’s fruits. As if that were not courageous enough, Vianney was regularly tormented by Satan, whom he referred to as “grapplin,” a rude or diminutive term for a wrestler. The chief of fallen angels would set Vianney’s bed on fire, howl outside his window at night, appear in the form of wild animals, and even physically assault the priest. In one story demonstrative of the priest’s courage, he awoke one night to Satan standing beside his bed taunting him. Vianney casually said, “Oh, it’s just you. I thought it was something important,” before rolling over and going back to sleep.

The annals of the Catholic Church are full of stories of such masculine men. St. Francis De Sales is well-known for encouraging gentleness and humility, earning him the moniker of the Gentleman Saint. Yet lesser-known is that the Gentleman Saint was also an accomplished swordsman. While a student at University of Padua in Italy, De Sales distinguished himself from his classmates by studying late into the night and frequently attending Eucharistic adoration, while his peers would often frequent bars and brothels.

One night, a group of fellow students waylaid the future Doctor of the Church, drawing their swords in an attempt to rough him up and mock his quiet piety. De Sales, however, also drew his sword and quickly disarmed his assailants. Instead of killing them — as they all, being law students, knew he would have likely had a legal right to — De Sales offered them an alternative, which they gladly accepted: attend morning Mass with the Saint.

Priests Should Look to St. Moses the Black

St. Moses the Black was known as a hulking figure and led a storied life: once a slave to an Egyptian official, Moses was banished after he was discovered as a thief and accused of murder. He then took up a life of crime, leading a band of robbers in terrorizing the communities along the banks of the Nile. While escaping pursuit, Moses took refuge among a group of monks, whom he soon joined after converting to Christianity. Years later, when a group of bandits attacked the monastery, Moses fought them with his bare hands, overpowered them, tied them up, and dragged them before the abbot to face judgment.

When Berber raiders attacked the monastery, the then-75-year-old Moses forbid his brother monks from taking up weapons. He determined that his own past sins as a robber warranted a violent death and so gave his life fighting the Berbers while his fellow monks escaped to safety.

St. Joseph, St. Lawrence, St. Sebastian, St. George, St. Patrick, St. Thomas Becket, St. Francis Assisi, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Thomas More, St. Edmund Campion, and so many others exhibited and truly lived out Christian virtue and true masculinity. The stories and example of these men and men like them would inspire a vocations boom of almost unprecedented scale, especially in an age when young men are seeking meaning and purpose, a noble cause to which to devote their lives. It’s a shame that the example of these Saints does not inspire more bishops today.

READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy:

How the Sons of St. Patrick Preserved the West

What J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Had to Say About the Dangers of Immortality