A familiar name to many of you, Mr Eric Hester was my headmaster. He had this letter published in today's Daily Telegraph:
Sir - Writing about Scottish architecture (Arts, November 6), Ellis Woodman laments that a modernist-designed Scottish Roman Catholic seminary has been empty for 20 years and is being vandalised. He writes: "The problems began when the Second Vatican Council decreed that priests should be trained not in seclusion, but within the community."
There was no such decree. Seminaries are thriving and full in Africa, eastern Europe and Rome. The problem in Scotland - and England - is that there have been hardly any seminarians to be trained inside or outside seminaries.
The reasons for the drop in vocations are many, but they are mainly those false ideas of what the Second Vatican Council is supposed to have said. Could the decline in vocations, and in church attendance, also have something to do with those modernist buildings?
Eric Hester, Bolton, Lancashire
The seminary in question is St Peter's College in Cardross.
2 comments:
i have the diocesan vocations director coming into school once a month and already there is some interest the real question is the content of the schools RE curriculam you cant patch up Icons with little bits of traditon its not strong enough my boys learn the penny catechism and its a tremedous effort in year 8 the hard work is being able to teach without being defensive in effect from year 7 the boys are taught how to think theologically not instructed which cannot work today oh and they love it and the GCSE results have gone through the roof
Sounds like you are doing a magnificent job. I find the the St Joseph's Baltimore Catechism is a better tool that just the plain penny cat. It's got all the q&a format but with additional material: diagrams and lots of analogies. Each copy is quite cheap; I got mine from Carmel Books.
Post a Comment