Seeing the ciphers today so casually cited; a round million at the lowest of unborn babies in America alone-- And a lament for such few vocations to the holy priesthood, Oh, What to do? Why do so few young men come forward for God's people? Cooincidentally, a good number of vocations keep showing up in far-off countries like the Philipines and Africa. Countries in which we know there's poverty and lack of opportunity. It seems their prayers for vocations have been answered. What is the main difference ? ? ?

God has been aware; we have to be-- of the extinction of vocations being tolerated here in the first world There must be some aborted male babies that could have been holy men. Not a few priests; possibly thousands over ten years, And among females at least one potential Theresa of Calcutta every number of years; a baby who would have answered God's call to be another Mother Theresa. This is not purely imaginative. It is happening.

If the holy scriptures prove that each soul is known to our heavenly Father intimately even before conception, --it does; --then this country is surely killing some saints. They are made martyrs in the womb. More of them seem to born in Africa now than in North America and western Europe.

Christ prophesied it all. In the final days, He says: ''The charity of the many will have grown cold.''

Catholics and all who call themselves Christians do well to pray now for God's mercy. That He may put an end to this holocaust? Yes; though this might only come with our total destruction as a people. Mercy, then. Mercy on this people, you and me.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 12, 2004

Answers

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-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 12, 2004.

I wonder if I'm putting the chicken before the egg? I guess so.

No one denies there's a shortage of American vocations. But even I have said in the past that God calls the man; men should not choose the priesthood unless they know He calls. We can't be sure a fetus will answer the call if he is allowed to live. That is getting ahead of things.

But all seminarians alive today were fetal ''tissue'' at the start. As well as every criminal. God knows the very ones; and He creates priests. Criminals become that way because of their sins.

It might be today the fetus who is eventually a criminal lives to adulthood. What about the other ones? Their mothers are sometimes criminals. Pulling a trigger on the baby who would have been a priest ? Who, the priest's MOTHER?

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 12, 2004.

Eugene,

I was looking at the abortion statistics someone linked, and 80% of abortions are to unwed women. Perhaps the place to start reducing this crime is to push pre-marital abstinence harder.

Frank

-- Someone (ChimingIn@twocents.cam), June 12, 2004.

Yes of course. I've deliberately focused on the fetus and their potential role when mothers bring them to term. Life. / If we calculate what the chances have been, then abortion is costing America vocations to the holy priesthood. A woman whether in or out of wedlock, ought to contemplate the various ways her child could grow up provided she gives it (him) the chance.

Her abortion might be the aborting of a holy priest. If so, that mother has circumvented even the Will of God. On the day of judgment, she will have to stand before Him and answer. All mothers who deny a baby life will have to.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 12, 2004.

Good post, Eugene, but if your going to make the argument that any of the aborted babies could have been the next mother Theresa, you also have to aknowledge that they could just as easily have been the next Hitler.

Just something to think about.

-- Anti-bush (Comrade_bleh@hotmail.com), June 12, 2004.

I'm certainly not minimizing either the horrible scale of the abortion holocaust or the problem of reduced vocations in western countries, but I think it's drawing a very long bow indeed to say that one causes the other. I don't have the stats but I would wager that at least 90% of future priests are born to women who would never have dreamed of having an abortion. Hence it would seem that the proportion of would-be-priests in the aborted is even lower than the proportion of priests among those who survive unaborted. So if all the aborted babies had been allowed to live, the proportion of priests in the population would be even lower than it is. I think the two ARE linked, but one does not cause the other. Rather both are symptoms of the materialist hedonist outlook common in the modern West.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), June 13, 2004.

In answer to these last two posts:
I already reflected on the other side of this coin. Criminals are not made so by God's divine Will. Sin makes the criminal.

Conversely, a soul who arrives at holy orders, and potentially sainthood, is foreknown from eternity by our Father in heaven. He sets apart some souls, as He has with John Paul II, and Mother Theresa. They don't reach their full potential by some great interior effort of theirs, but by a special outpouring of God's favor, His grace.

I posed the question of what comes first, the chicken or the egg. Who makes priests? God does, not mothers. Not chance.

The world may have lost a number of these elect souls because of a sin committed against the unborn. If we ''lost'' another Hitler as well, let that make some different point. God didn't create any soul expressly to sin. Hitler's soul was clearly meant by God to come to salvation in Jesus Christ. It's free will, inherent during his lifetime in Hitler, and his sins, that have made him Hitler. Hitler in his mother's womb was not yet a sinner. Whereas, John the Baptist in his mother's womb was already a chosen soul.

We have no reason to believe some sinful mothers might bear children chosen for a holy life by God. Statistics have nothing to do with it. God can work miracles in any soul. But they must live; in order to reach the goal God has set for them.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 13, 2004.

Sorry-- We have no reson to believe God CANNOT-- raise a holy person and priests, from the offspring of unworthy parents, or unwed mothers. That's another point I never covered; even the child of a rapist by God's grace can become blessed in the sight of our father in heaven. Making a false pretext of that popular argument; abort pregnancies that are unwanted basically because of rape or incest. The unborn child hasn't sinned against his other. He/she is an innocent soul.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 13, 2004.

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-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 13, 2004.

Eugene, can’t you ever consider someone else’s point of view without getting on your high horse and accusing them of the most extreme positions merely because they doubt your mighty wisdom on a particular point? Everyone here knows that fetuses are innocent and do not deserve to die, and no-one suggested otherwise.

Yes, we know that God has called some wonderful priests from backgrounds of atheism. But we see that God’s usual way is to work through Christians, especially Christian parents. Surely the most likely family to produce a priest is one which practises its Catholic religion as something real and vitally important. Mothers of such families are most unlikely to abort.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), June 14, 2004.

You're unnecessarily defensive. I DID have some awareness of the ''usual'' vocation. We have just such a source available now, thank God. It makes for a shortage of vocations. --I suggested that amidst a myriad of aborted babies over the span of --twenty years???

It's possible many hundreds of potential seminarians were lost to the Catholic Church.

I know this is speculation. Isn't life and its potential always speculative?

Now-- Who boarded the high horse? To correct that speculation? Steve did. He seems to know better; having never seen stats to indicate ''bad mothers'' who chose to abort ever care about the Catholic faith.

This only presupposes God cannot bring a priest up from anywhere it pleases Him. OK. Maybe God hasn't that power. If you say so.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 14, 2004.

I give up on you. You pretend to want a serious discussion of an issue but all you want is a verbal fist-fight. I never labelled anyone a “bad mother” . I certainly did NOT say “God cannot bring a priest up from anywhere it pleases Him” . I said exactly the opposite. It is impossible for any of us to achieve any growth in knowledge or faith when your only aim is to distort others’ posts to create straw-men for you to knock down.

-- Steve (55555@aol.com), June 15, 2004.

we as christian adults in this world need to set better examples for children. i mean everything-- from controlling materialism (worship of THINGS), to controlling anger, to forgiveness, to keeping the body healthy and even chaste.

at times i see the actions of some adults and i think they would be ashamed if they saw themselves on film. i know I'VE had moments when i was an example of white trash, to say the least.

this is key to a lot of problems, in my opinion (adult example, i mean). and i think steve and eugene have both touched on it in this thread.

-- jas (jas_r_22@hotmail.com), June 15, 2004.

Here's some good advice:
Don't pretend to understand a subject because a statistic can or can't be found. You said there aren't stats. What's that got to do with empty seminaries? Men are missing. That's all I said; and you thought you could shed light on the reasons by--WHAT? Why do you automatically dispute my premise: if a million and a half babies are killed in the womb each year; and roughly half are males--

Over time that's a lot of dead MEN. Out of this vast number a good thousand might have entered our seminaries. That's my only point.

How does it distort your posts?

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 15, 2004.

I agree with Steve on this one. He's right. The mom's of today's crop of young priests don't tend to have abortions! Most priests come from large families, not small ones.

-- Joe (joestong@yahoo.com), June 16, 2004.

Nobody says that a mother who's had abortion(s) has sons entering the priesthood. The fact she's aborted a son is a sure guarantee he isn't able to enter one. If she HAD NOT aborted him, he might have, See the logic?

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 16, 2004.

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Let's allow also, in fairness, for one very obvious fault in my speculation. No one can deny more non- Catholic women have been having abortions. Which means if allowed to live their offspring would be outside the Church.

-- eugene c. chavez (loschavez@pacbell.net), June 16, 2004.