wfn.org | Episcopal Church addresses need for young priests

[Daphne Mack <dmack@dfms.org>]

99-2296
Initiative to encourage young people to be priests 

by Kathryn McCormick 
 (ENS) Citing the need for more young priests in the 
Episcopal Church, a group of three bishops, eight clergy and one 
layperson has launched the Young Priests Initiative to support 
young people who feel they have a call to ministry.

The initiative, announced after the group's meeting last 
December in New York City, will begin with three pilot programs to 
be run concurrently starting next fall in the dioceses of the 
three bishops who attended the meeting: Peter Lee of Virginia, 
Robert Duncan of Pittsburgh and Thomas Shaw of Massachusetts.

"The church needs young priests," said Lee. "I hope the 
Young Priests Initiative will encourage a climate in which the 
Holy Spirit's call to young people may be heard more clearly and 
that more young people will find that a vocation in holy orders is 
deeply rewarding and challenging."

The fact that many young people have not been seeking 
ordination in recent years was what spurred a conference last June 
called "Gathering the neXt Generation," which resulted in the 
December meeting and the Initiative. More than 130 young clergy 
and others at the June meeting concerned with adding more to those 
ranks acknowledged their shock that out of the church's more than 
8,000 active priests fewer than 300 are younger than 35. This is 
at a time when a significant number of clergy are nearing 
retirement and the average age of seminarians is hovering around 
40.

Calling those "frightening statistics," Christine 
McSpadden, associate rector of St. Bartholomew's Church in New 
York, which hosted the December meeting, said that those numbers 
"would lead to an extreme shortage of experienced priests in the 
near future."

The seeds for the new Initiative were planted early last 
year when, in the weeks before he retired as dean of Christ Church 
Cathedral in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Very Rev. James Leo set aside 
$75,000 from his discretionary fund in an account administered by 
the Association of Episcopal Colleges, on whose board of trustees 
Leo sits. The money was to be used to advance the cause of young 
vocations in the church. Upon hearing of the success of 
"Gathering the neXt Generation," the Rev. Canon John Powers, 
executive vice president of the association, contacted conference 
organizers to see how he might help. Funds from the Leo account 
will help launch the diocesan projects.

The Initiative aims to:
* seek to increase the number of priests under the age of 30;
* place people into the ordination process, although it will 
not mean that the program will have failed if a person 
participating discerns that he or she does not have a call;
* -require each participating diocese to articulate ways it 
can change (or provide an alternative to) the ordination 
process, particularly the structure of the Commission on 
Ministry and the criteria employed there to discern a 
vocation to ordained ministry.
* discuss and share all efforts to change the prevailing 
culture that discourages young vocations, even though the 
currently available funding will cover only projects that 
are part of the pilot programs, and;
* focus recruitment on the young people of the participating 
dioceses, with a special appeal through the chaplaincies at 
institutions belonging to the Association of Episcopal 
Colleges.

The group at the December meeting agreed to meet again next 
December to examine and discuss their new programs.

--Kathryn McCormick is Associate Director of the Office of News 
and Information of the Episcopal Church.

Episcopal News Service
Kathryn McCormick
(212) 922-5383
kmccormick@dfms.org
www.ecusa.anglican.org/ens