Viewing Single Post From: Why Are There So Few Vocations?;

Viewing Single Post From: Why Are There So Few Vocations?;
Bob Crowley	Thursday, 22. January 2009, 07:39
Posts: 535 Group: Members Member #127 Joined: December 21, 2007	We would need to compare this situation to that of the Protestant pastors, who in many cases are doing a sterling job, though in many cases married. I was going to post a couple of pages from a comment by a Chinese pastor who was actually writing about Ecumenism in China between Protestant and Catholic Churches. But I decided to condense his main points. I used China because it has the fastest growing Christian population in the world. His comments included - "Ecclesiastically, the Catholic Church has not been active in evangelical works and many limitations to Church growth come from the structural nature of the Church itself. Its weak points are rooted in the inner-looking tendency of its mission which keeps it from effective communications with the different aspects of the society." He said a bit about how the Pope's office can be misconceived, but that was more to do with Chinese culture. "On the other hand, in the eyes of Protestant pastors, the Catholic Church in China has a number of very particular and great merits or advantages. Its Priesthood is very firm. It maintains a reasonable distance from the secular society and retains relative independence in the world of diverse and competing spiritualities. It is a Church based on Doctrines and it is a Sacramental Church too." "The Protestant Church in China The evangelical “Mass” movement is spreading the Gospel fastest among the Chinese at nearly all levels of society....." But what are the weak points of the Protestant Church in China? I think there are the following four points: 1. There are no authorities for doctrines or standards for the interpretation of the Faith.... 2. The Sacraments have become superficial due in large part to the extreme nationalism or identification with particular subgroups ............... 3. The “Mass Movements” have no doctrines with the result that while there are more believers, there is a decreasing sense of the Sacramental and Doctrinal elements from universal Christianity..... 4. The top leadership of the TSPM/CCC lacks ecclesial nature, and therefore has little or no spiritual and sacramental or even Kerygramatic basis................ In other words, the Mass Movement was most successful in evangelising, but the Catholic Church had the best sacramental and doctrinal statements. Hence the Church, to be successful, needs to focus less on "Vocations", which tend to be inward looking (eg. the meditating orders, clerical centrality) and instead train laity to carry out evangelism but with a strong emphasis on church sacraments and doctrines, so that when the lay evangelists make a doctrinal statement, it is at least correct.


Why Are There So Few Vocations?; · The Mass , Liturgy, Sacraments, Priesthood