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Fr Steve Sinn – a Jesuit at work
By Fr Richard Leonard SJ
We have been amazed at the reaction to our new series of vocation advertisements. Within days of the first of series appearing, Australian Associated
Press posted a story on the wire and responses have been thick and fast.
Most people, especially young people have been very positive, but others have reacted negatively accusing us of swearing, cursing or
even blasphemy.
Our hope with all the ads is that they will catch people’s attention and that they would be startled, perhaps even begin to be shocked. But then they would nod or smile and say, “Ah yes! They
are asking young people what they are doing for Christ. And, come to think of it, they are reminding us that ‘for Christ’s sake’ has a good meaning that been lost through abuse.”
These ads point to a new
upfront approach by the Jesuits to proposing life with them as an option a young Catholic man could consider.
When I recall what I have heard about religious vocations over the years, the thoughts about the
decline in religious vocations are either too mystical – as though all we need is just to keep praying harder; or too sociological – that what we need is a new gimmick to get us over the problem.
The issues
here are much more complex than either position suggests.
What the Jesuits have done in the past year is try to get real about the wider cultural forces affecting religious vocations.
For instance,
Catholics now have only fractionally larger families than the national average. Once if there were six children it was a great honour for one of them to enter the priesthood or religious life.
Now Catholic
parents – and research shows how important mothers are in this – want grandchildren. If you only have two or three children, one becoming a celibate religious or priest is a huge sacrifice.
We are not alone
in the major shifts occurring in society. Respect for, trust in and devotion towards all major social institutions is in transition.
Look at the change in public regard for and membership of political
parties, university clubs and societies, trade unions, professional associations, the military and social service groups.
There is a youth membership crisis across the board, especially in attracting and
keeping young men 18-40. This generation is typified by “will donate, but not join”.
The viability of volunteer service groups like Lions, Rotary, Apex and SVdP is in peril. Sometimes people in the Church
can think we are the only ones having a crisis of youth membership, but this is simply not true.
There is a crisis of commitment in the younger generation who are deeply suspicious of lifelong vows and often
want to know where the exit door is.
The current divorce rate of 35.2 per cent of all first time marriages in Australia tells some of this story. It would be very difficult to find a young person in
Australia who is not related to or does not know a divorced person.
Moreover, many young people know priests and religious who have left. These realities create a context in which life commitment can be seen
as not for life at all.
There have never been more choices for young men disposed to be generous with time and talent. Red Cross, Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Care Australia, Australian Volunteers
Abroad, World Vision and UN agencies offer placements that are more individualistic, have a definite time commitment through a contract, can be in heroic locations, directly use skills and offer social, moral,
personal but not sexual demands on the person.
These groups are held in very high regard.
Post-modernity has challenged the great narratives and universal truth claims we hold to be true. We are about
the last group left in society that makes absolute truth claims for this world and the next.
We can never underestimate the impact of how sexual and physical abuse scandals have damaged the public perception
of the Church and its priests and religious. Less than one per cent of the 3,246 Catholic priests in Australia have been convicted of physical or sexual abuse. Even one case is one too many and every time I hear of
a conviction I feel the corporate shame and utter compassion for the victims and the perpetrators.
But the media coverage given to these cases has left a perception that the priesthood and religious life is
a dysfunctional group that, at worst, will manifest itself in aberrant and criminal behaviour, or, at least, will leave them leading lonely and unhappy lives.
Some Catholic parents have told me this is a key
reason why they would discourage their sons from becoming a priest. The sadness for us is that it is just not true for all the vast majority of us who lead happy, fulfilled and faithful lives.
CHURCH ISSUES
We no longer preach “saving one’s soul” and “saving other’s souls” as the reason to become a nun, brother or priest. Vocations literature used to say it was “a more assured
path to heaven”. That was quite a pitch.
Vatican II taught that all baptised people in the Church have different, but equally important roles in the life of the Church and in service of the Gospel.
We
cannot underestimate the difficulties in making poverty, chastity and obedience attractive to a youth culture that is wealth- hunting, consumerist, highly sexualised and libertarian.
I recently spoke to an
advertising friend who asked me what my product was. I said “poverty, chastity and obedience for life, for the sake of Gospel and in service of the Church”. Stunned silence, then he laughed: “Good luck selling
that”.
The real issue, of course, is that people want to be part of the mission of the Jesuits and our life; that’s the real product and the vows are how we enable ourselves and each other to live it.
A number of people think if we change the laws on celibacy we would be flooded with applications. We might, but I doubt it.
And we cannot promote optional celibacy when it does not exist as an option in the
Church!
Even if it were to change, it would not affect religious orders like the Jesuits who live in communities. I would hope we would always value celibacy as a gift to the Church.
Many men and
women have led heroic lives in service of the people through the world and in every generation and their celibate commitment helped them do it. They were mobile, available and claimed the people they served as their
family.
HOW DOES THIS AFFECT THE JESUITS?
We are the only Australian male religious order to have novices enter every year since 1854.
We still have 19 men who are in
training; and, although in comparison with previous years the numbers are small, the quality remains high.
We still have doctors, lawyers, social workers, teachers, musicians, psychologists, soldiers,
journalists, academics, and tradesmen joining us. There are 21,000 Jesuits in the world doing a huge amount of work for Jesus and the Church.
You can do anything and be a Jesuit – as long as it’s not sinful.
The thing I like about our life is that we try to work out how best to use a man’s talents rather than make him fit our pre-existing structures.
WHAT ARE WE DOING?
First
things first. No matter how we develop a new language to speak to a new generation, our focus remains the same.
We cannot put a new spin on it and we can’t change it; we have responded to Jesus Christ and
want to work to bring his kingdom on earth through the mission of the Church.
We seek talented Catholic men, 18 to 35, who are sane and generous. If we wait for this group to come to us we could be waiting a
very long time, so we want to go to them where they are and put our life, as one of their many options, on their agenda.
Our experience of this generation is that they like the upfront and direct approach.
No one else who is trying to speak to this generation goes softly and neither should we.
Because this group glean most of their information from the internet, we have launched www.jesuit.org.au and all of our new advertising leads to it.
The ads are meant to grab the attention of the group and then lead them to the website, so
they can find out more at their leisure and can revisit as often as they like. We are going to place them in university newspapers and the Catholic press.
We have sent a team of three dynamic young Jesuits
back into our Jesuit schools across Australia to speak about vocations. Not that we take school-leavers, but, again I think we went on to the back foot and so we are trying to be more up-front with Year 11 and 12s
about what their options are. For a young Catholic man or woman, this life is one of their options and we want them to consider it.
In six months we have spoken to 1,250 Year 11s and 124 of them indicated
they wanted to speak with us about the priesthood and religious life.
We are not naive enough to think they’ll all become Jesuits, but everyone of those conversations was worth having.
All of our new
initiatives are intended to help a young man or woman ask three questions: Among the many options I have, are the Jesuits an option I should seriously consider? Could I be a fulfilled and happy man in the service of
Jesus and the People of God as a Jesuit brother or priest? Do I have what it takes to ‘give it a go’?
So the issues and the responses are as complex and simple as that!
For further
comment, please call Fr Richard Leonard SJ, Vocations promoter, Jesuits in Australia, on (03) 9349 1272 or 0407 500 396. Or visit the Jesuits’ website on www.jesuit.org.au
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