Thursday, December 20, 2018

The Decline of a Seminary



When there were many seminarians in the diocesan seminaries.

(Rome) The seminary of the diocese of Vicenza was still in its prime just a few decades ago. From this diocese comes Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolin, who was ordained a priest in 1980 for the diocese.

Until the early 1970s, the Major Seminary had a constant 130-150 seminarians. The Minor seminary, the episcopal high school, was attended by about 200 students. Every year 20-25 new priests were ordained.

That was not uncommon, but in whole European regions the rule.

The diocese had a well-known Schola Cantorum, which consisted of a hundred singers who belonged to the two seminaries. It was headed by Msgr Ernesto Dalla Libera (1884-1980), who took piano and organ lessons at his own expense as a student and trained in Gregorian chant with the Benedictines of Parma. He was commissioned in his home diocese to become the main representative of the Cecilia Movement and the then bishop, Msgr. Ferdinando Rodolfi, Bishop from 1911, with the implementation of the liturgical renewal in the diocese. From 1908-1968 Dalla Libera was choirmaster of the Schola Cantorum of the episcopal seminary, which performed her musical service at the Duomo of Vicenza.

The Schola has not existed for a long time.

The Seminary currently has nine seminarians in the academic year 2018/2019, although the population in the diocese has increased by 30 percent since 1970, from 670,000 to 867,000.

In 2018 there was no ordination. Also in 2019 and 2020, as it currently looks, there will be no new priestly ordinations.

The minor seminary was closed three years ago, and the task of the vocation ministry among high school students transferred to a retreat and meeting center for young people. The seminary building, which was rebuilt in the 1950s under great financial sacrifice of the faithful, was sold to the National Health Service in 2015.

Now it became known that the private school H-Farm will move into the former small seminary. It describes itself as a "school of the future.” There are "neither blackboards nor school desks,” but "mobility and networking.” The main tools are "McBook and iPad from primary school.” Digitization and the use of modern, technical aids is a central component of the "school philosophy.” Particular emphasis will be placed on "robotics and artificial intelligence,” but also "magic hour to meet the superheroes of our time" and "soft skills to train capable managers with leadership and empathy.” H-Farm wants to develop a "completely new school model" and test it on some "thousands of students" in the H campus in order to gradually export it.

The spectrum should reach from kindergarten to post-university and further education. "A span from the age of 3 to 33," says the founder and CEO of Riccardo Donadon. Half of the money is privately owned by the insurance company Cattolica Assiscurazioni, whose largest single shareholder is Warren Buffett. The other half are financed by the public sector through a credit institution controlled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The cooperation had been entered into by the previous government.

According to the traditional website Messa in Latino, it is "sad" that one Diocesan high school closes down while another private board closes.

Messa in Latino accuses the incumbent bishop of Vicenza of being the confirmation that the "typical" activity of a bishop today, that of a "steward of decline" is to "shut down, let go, sell.”

"Is it possible that nobody realizes that he needs a course change?"

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Picture: MiL
Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com
AMDG

22 comments:

  1. Remember St?JPII said this was the wonderful fruit of V2.

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  2. I'm more worried about the decline of the U.S.A. now that opus devil rat paul ryan and bloody baby butchering trannie pelosi are teaming up (w/the feinsteins, shoooomers and bernie sanders) to ensure the spanish take over. And we all know who they take orders from:

    https://news.nd.edu/news/father-hesburgh-honored-in-u-s-capitol/

    How come a pedophile is still on the speaker's website?

    https://www.speaker.gov/photo/photo-speaker-boehner-cardinal-mccarrick

    http://archive.jsonline.com/newswatch/343938612.html

    Can't defund planned parenthood. Can't get rid of obama care. But pedophile paul ryan (nitt romney's running mate who brags about trying to put sodomites in the boy scouts since 1994) can hand the house of representatives to bloody trannie baby killer vampire bat pelosi.

    https://www.glaad.org/blog/mitt-romney-stands-1994-statement-supporting-end-boy-scouts-ban-gay-americans

    Mr. Ryan’s contributions to the party would steadily decline; in the last fund-raising quarter of the campaign, his political committee transferred a paltry $1.4 million to the N.R.C.C., less than some first-time Democratic candidates raised for themselves.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/democrats-republicans-house.html

    Immigration Delay

    Ryan hesitated for months on the immigration proposals that many Republicans say their constituents want, counseling members to campaign on economic growth and last year’s tax cuts. On Thursday, he convened a private House GOP meeting on immigration in a bid to quell a rebellion by his most vulnerable members -- moderates in swing states -- who have almost enough signatures on a petition to demand votes on competing proposals.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/us/politics/democrats-republicans-house.html

    wonder when paul ryan will get his condo (or maybe he's getting a mansion) in florida.

    (just a few days after meeting w/pedophile mccarrick)
    https://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/gone-viral/os-john-boehner-buys-florida-condo-post.html


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  3. Or you could do a post on the cohens, shoomers and feinsteins teaming up again (like they did in 2008 to hand the election to Obama) to tank the stock market. Why can't the U.S. build a wall like they do in Israel? The U.S.A. isn't important -- just dollars for Israel. Dollars for pervert pedophile 'bishops' (and their education and healthcare industrial complex) and Dollars for DemocRATS.

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  4. There are hundreds of examples of this kind of decline that one could write about. TS

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  5. This mirrors what is happening across Europe. The seminary at Ushaw College (which produced Cardinal Merry del Val) closed some years ago after being one of the major supplier of priests across the UK. Someone in the Church will have to (or maybe already has) answer for this to Almighty God

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  6. Further to David O'Neill's comment on Ushaw College, the biggest seminary in the UK. Yes, it had accommodation for over 400 students. A new block was built in the 1960s and there were plans for further expansion, which never happened - hey, VAT2 was going to produce a massive harvest of new vocations. When the decision to close Ushaw was finally announced in 2010, there were 26 students.

    The most outrageous waste of money has to be St Peter's Seminary on the west coast of Scotland. It was completed in 1966, just as this glorious harvest of vocations failed to arrive. Built in a suitably hideous style, it was as useless as it was ugly. In the Scottish climate, it was not even waterproof and the lack of seminarians hastened its closure. But it makes a great modern ruin for the abandoned buildings buffs and photographers.

    https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-ruins-of-st-peter-s-seminary-cardross-scotland

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  7. Everything is collapsing. The Church is dying. There will only be a remnant and a few pockets left.

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  8. "There are hundreds of examples of this kind of decline that one could write about. TS "

    Yes, TS....hundreds. But actually the real answer is thousands....perhaps close to 10,000....no exaggeration.
    Closed seminaries, monasteries, schools, convents, churches,parishes,specialized schools, nursing homes, hospices, hospitals, etc.,colleges....the list goes on and on.
    ALL the fruit of Vatican II..

    The disaster is worse than the Protestant Reformation wiping out monasteries and religious houses....because the destruction then was only in places that turned Protestant...and that was bad enough (parts of Germany and Switzerland, Netherlands, small parts of Eastern Europe alone the Baltic (Latvia,Estonia), and of course Scandinavia.....and of course Great Britian.
    The destruction was confined to those places, whereas now, since the disaster of Vatican II, it's world-wide.
    Made much worse by people like Francis and company.

    Damian Malliapalli

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  9. The pews started to empty and participation rates went into a deeper and deeper decline at the end of WWII. It has little or nothing to do with Vatican II but don't let the facts get in the way of a good old fashion unfocused spray.

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    Replies
    1. Some of the decline in some parts of the Church prior to Vatican II can be attributed to the ideological influence of Modernism, which began to spread after the Great War. Teilhard de Chardin was working hard promulgating his errors. Many modernists were also saying the Traditional mass, preaching, teaching, and getting away with as much as they could without getting in trouble with their bishop before V2. So, yes, I'll give the decline did not begin ipso facto in 1965 with the council, it began and is caused by the past 100 years of the psuedo-theo-philosophical ideas of Modernism.

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  10. Actually, if you look at physical plant, the pews were still filling in the early 60s.

    Of course, as usual, we’re expected to take your word for these claims.

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  11. The most dramatic rates of disaffiliation from the Catholic Church were recorded during the Papacies of JP II and Benedict XVI.
    As for the high rates of 'vocations' in Trad religious and clerical institutes, what is not readily available is the 'turnstile' effect similar to the revolving door in Evangelical Churches. Even the brainwashed eventually wake up to the control mechanisms applied to them.

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  12. After you with your spectacular ambits, Sir Knight.
    The problem for you however, is that whenever evidence has been provided you don't study it, dismiss it out of hand because it puts the skids under your ideological feet so you just retire to your psychologically gated domain of cognitive dissonance and sulk.

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    Replies
    1. You’re the one who’s making fantastical claims. No wonder you’re too afraid of revealing who or what loathesome thing you really are.

      Delete
  13. Congratulations on the trademark pearl clutching routine, Tancred.

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  14. The Gay Gray church act was stale quite a while ago,Tancred. If he won't respond and won't at least be polite, flush him.

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  15. The Gay Gray church act was stale quite a while ago,Tancred. If he won't respond and won't at least be polite, flush him.

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    Replies
    1. To my knowledge, he’s never once substantiated any of his claims,
      especially when it comes to the alleged post-war dropoff in numbers which he attributes to that medieval-style Church he performs his beat ups on.

      Delete
  16. Tancred has a point. The fall off in attendance at Mass worldwide largely occurred after the traditional latin mass was effectively banned in 1969. Before that Mass attendance was more than 50%, a figure any protestant church would give their eye teeth to match.

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  17. Hello Peter,

    "The most dramatic rates of disaffiliation from the Catholic Church were recorded during the Papacies of JP II and Benedict XVI."

    You're fond of evidence, I hear. As such, I'm sure you have some for this, and I would be delighted to seriously consider it.

    One observation I will offer ahead of time, however, is to suggest that the assumption that the Catholic Church in most of the West was somehow "conservative" (let alone traditional!!) in 1978-2013 fails to take account of just who the bishops and priests on the ground were in those years, and the kind of theological imprint they stamped on their dioceses and parishes.

    "As for the high rates of 'vocations' in Trad religious and clerical institutes, what is not readily available is the 'turnstile' effect similar to the revolving door in Evangelical Churches. Even the brainwashed eventually wake up to the control mechanisms applied to them."

    Yes, the SSPX in particular has had this problem - high intake, but also a high exodus to various destinations - canonical, monastic, sede, et al. This is not a secret.

    And yet, even so, they *have* grown, and grown substantially. Just growing *at all* is no mean feat in our age.

    The Institute of Christ the King started with 2 priests in 1990. Today they have over 100.

    The Fraternity of St. Peter started with 7 priests in 1988. Today, they have over 300.

    One can see similar growth curves with traditionalist monastic communities...

    You can find a few charismatic orders that show growth like this, but otherwise? Is there a diocese or established order that has shown this kind of growth? Can you find one that has even grown at all?

    58 French dioceses ordained no priests this year. Perhaps it's just a bit hasty to say it's just because Humanae Vitae and neo-Thomism drove all the men away.

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