A few years ago, I spent about two years trying to write fiction. None of it was very good. My first effort, which was truly terrible, was a fantasy novel called The Black Feather, which was an attempt to write the standard fantasy story, but this time taking the side of the generic Dark Lord, who was a kind of arch-conservative trying to stop the fantasy world in question from becoming modernized, plutocratic and banal. My second effort was a more reasonable stab at a fantasy novel-- a children's fantasy novel, this time-- called The Bard's Apprentice. A publishing house mulled over it for a good while, before sending it back to me with a "no thanks" and a savage reader's report. That was the closest I came to being a novelist.
After that I wrote a horror novel called The Snowman. It was set in a Dublin suburb which was being controlled by an extra-terrestrial being. This being, summoned by the wish of a terminally ill child, had taken the form of a snowman, and (with child-like misguided kindness) had decided to grant the suburb's residents Their Wildest Fantasies. This, of course, resulted in all kinds of chaos and carnage. (I thought it made a cute title and subtitle, though. The Snowman: a Horror Story.) I actually think it was a pretty good concept, and the first few chapters were passable, but it was terribly executed on the whole.
Then I wrote a series of a hundred short-short horror stories called A Hundred Nightmares, and finally another children's fantasy called The Man Who Could Make Worlds, which was about a boy trapped within his own fantasy world. After that I gave up fiction as a bad job, especially since I didn't write it with any enormous enthusiasm (for all my determined industriousness). I never even read fiction with that much enthusiasm. It wasn't till I was in my thirties that I realised it was actually OK to prefer non-fiction to fiction. (I still feel vaguely guilty and unbalanced for not reading novels more often, and more enthusiastically.)
It was an interesting time in my life, though. I just wrote all the time. I pretty much wrote all evening, and all weekend. I even stayed at home on my summer holidays and wrote, wrote, wrote. I thought I would have to get better eventually. I wrote ten thousand words in one day once-- although that was as a challenge to myself, and it was probably ten thousand words of the purest rubbish. My imagination had been kindled by reading about the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who famously said "If I was told I had a month to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster", and "I think through my fingers". I guess I was play-acting a bit-- but when do we ever stop play-acting?
I do think God made use of this interlude in my life, though. The more I wrote, the more I found myself wondering what any story was ultimately about, and then (which is really the same question) what life itself was about. By the time I had finished my collection of horror stories, I had written and thought myself into a deep depression, and a spiritual crisis. But that crisis had a happy outcome, since it led me to faith.
I was going through some files on an old computer just now, shaking my head at how bad most of my stories were. But I did come across this horror tale, which I think is fairly good in a twisted kind of way. I guess I want to have something to show for all those months of effort.
The Story of Life
Roddy stood in the lobby of the cinema, studying the posters. Now and again he glanced towards the attendant standing in a small space between two cordons, waiting for the first of the morning’s customers to appear.
It was a tall, skinny guy with wavy hair and heavy-framed glasses. He was gazing into the middle distance, dreaming. Then he smiled to himself, obviously thinking of something funny, and walked towards the shop to share it with his buddies.
Roddy strolled through the cordons, breezily.
He could have easily paid the price of a matinee ticket. He had three hundred euros stuffed in his back pocket. Roddy was twenty-three and he had never worked a day in his life.
He found it perpetually astonishing that anybody did work. Making money was easier than gathering lint in your pockets. How could the world be so full of smart people—people who could speak several languages and operate complicated machinery and understand pages and pages of legalese—and yet contain so few souls that had realised that great and simple truth, the childish simplicity of getting money for nothing?
Roddy had walked into warehouses and carried out bags of CD players. He had dressed in worker’s overalls and been given the run of solicitor’s and stockbroker’s offices. And everywhere, everywhere, there were wallets and purses just begging to be taken.
Roddy rarely bought anything if he didn’t even have to. But there was a pretty girl behind the counter of the lobby shop, so he strolled over.
“Could I’ve a bag of Suckers and a medium Zesto, please?” he asked, drinking in the scent of popcorn and hotdogs. He had always loved the cinema.
“Sure”, said the girl with the nice skin and the sandy hair, barely looking up.
“What’s the best thing on right now?”, he asked when she’d returned with the overflowing foam cup and the brightly-coloured bag of chocolates.
“Don’t know”, she said, curtly. “I hate films. That’s seven twenty.”
“Service with a smile”, said Roddy, in a sing-song voice. She glowered at him, snatching the note he held between his fingers.
“Hey, what’s this?”, he asked, when she dumped his change onto the freshly-polished counter. “I gave you a twenty.”
The girl shot him a stony stare. Roddy stared back at her, all indignation. Nobody had ever stared him down. It only took a second for the self-doubt to creep into her eyes, and a few seconds later she was opening the till again.
“OK,” she said. “Sorry about that.”
“No worries”, said Roddy. He grinned at her as she stuffed his change away. He felt a pang of pity for the girl. She was so cute. It seemed hard that she’d go through life like all the other cattle, the bulk of her time spent waiting, wading through the day, watching the hands of the clock go round.
The cinema was still empty, apart from some a few kids. They were waiting to get into a film called Hillbilly Heroes. Roddy took one look at the poster to their right and decided he’d give that one a miss.
He went from door to door, glancing at the posters. Rage on Wheels. It’s a Girl’s World. The Spy Who Purred. Doomfighter Three: The Black Planet. He sighed.
Here was one, though. The Story of Life. The richly-coloured poster showed a pair of pterodactyls flying above a primeval forest, superimposed over a DNA-like pattern. The Story of All Stories! read the tagline. It was just about to begin.
“That’s more like it” muttered Roddy, pushing the door open. Funny; he flicked through the cinema magazines every month, but he hadn’t heard of this one.
There was nobody inside. Well, what could you expect, with competition from Doomfighter Three? He settled himself in a middle row and waited for the ads and trailers to end, sipping his Zesto and munching his Suckers.
Then the screen went black. Slowly, an image appeared on the screen, fading in from darkness to a fiery orange. A pond glistened in a rocky landscape, under a sulfurous sky. A flash of lighting filled the screen, making Roddy blink.
Captions, in rude black Roman text, appeared on the screen.
Earth, some 3.8 billion years ago. The planet has already been in existence for over almost a billion years. In a shallow pool, chemicals bombarded by electric storms have formed amino acids. From these basic building blocks, the first simple bacteria are about to come into existence.
The captions faded from view. Roddy sat in the darkness and waited.
And waited. And waited. Nothing was happening on screen.
Perhaps ten minutes had passed when he rose from his seat in irritation. He walked to the edge of the aisle, turned, and then stopped.
The door he had come through—glowing EXIT sign and all—was gone.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Oh, my Prophetic Soul!
Aodhan O Riordain admits to his own hypocrisy on tape. See second post below. (And I worried if I was perhaps being unfair.)
This is also a man who backed a motion, at the Labour party conference, which included a proposal that Catholic civil servants should be discriminated against. He later claimed that part of the motion had escaped his attention, but how can he be believed now?
Our home-grown militant secularists don't even have the courage of their convictions.
(I don't approve of clandestine taping, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.)
This is also a man who backed a motion, at the Labour party conference, which included a proposal that Catholic civil servants should be discriminated against. He later claimed that part of the motion had escaped his attention, but how can he be believed now?
Our home-grown militant secularists don't even have the courage of their convictions.
(I don't approve of clandestine taping, but it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.)
Saturday, April 27, 2013
The Corpse
Saturday morning. Me and the world were fresh
As I made my way, my usual way, to church.
The Mass on Saturday morning was the one
I liked the best in the whole week. No choir
Crooning out banal hymns, no schoolkids dragged along
And sniggering in the pews, no rambling homily
Larded with clichés; some old girls, and me,
And a dozen other regulars, all bent
Upon our silent, sacramental task.
Except today, it was a different scene;
The church was thronged with people, young, well-dressed,
Self-confident, entitled to be there.
I stood outside the gate, not knowing what to do.
A funeral Mass. I didn't know the corpse.
But wasn't it still Mass, in spite of that?
And who would mind another mourner there?
And why should death disturb my sweet routine?
I ventured in. I'd never seen the church
So full of life. The pew that I sat in
Was full of teens and twenty-somethings. They
Were not the least bit awkward, even though
They'd no idea what to do or say.
This is their house as much as it is yours
I told myself. Don't be a Pharisee.
Then came the homily. And it was plain
This was no heart attack or accident.
It had been in the news; a violent death.
Senseless, the priest said. But I sat there thinking
How every death is violent, anyway.
And there the coffin lay, exposed to view,
Awkward before the altar. One more trip
And that was it; the guy would just be left
Stuck in the ground. The knees that had been grazed
So many times, the hair that had been cut
So many times, the body that had grown
So slowly, and required such looking after,
Would be deposited into a hole
And covered over, and left there for good.
Stop the proceedings, I felt like protesting,
This is a travesty. This can't be done
In half an hour. It felt downright obscene.
A man is a million men. A life is a million lives.
Each death should get a hundred funerals
A thousand funerals, or none at all.
How don't these people know the world has ended?
Of course, I didn't care a hoot for him
And they all loved or liked him. But so what?
My horror was untinged by sentiment.
I didn't sign the book. I fled the scene.
If only death was terrible! But death
Is trivial as a cancelled train. Death is
An incident, the business of a day.
Oh Christ, the tears you shed for Lazarus!
Teach us those tears, teach us those tears, oh Christ!
As I made my way, my usual way, to church.
The Mass on Saturday morning was the one
I liked the best in the whole week. No choir
Crooning out banal hymns, no schoolkids dragged along
And sniggering in the pews, no rambling homily
Larded with clichés; some old girls, and me,
And a dozen other regulars, all bent
Upon our silent, sacramental task.
Except today, it was a different scene;
The church was thronged with people, young, well-dressed,
Self-confident, entitled to be there.
I stood outside the gate, not knowing what to do.
A funeral Mass. I didn't know the corpse.
But wasn't it still Mass, in spite of that?
And who would mind another mourner there?
And why should death disturb my sweet routine?
I ventured in. I'd never seen the church
So full of life. The pew that I sat in
Was full of teens and twenty-somethings. They
Were not the least bit awkward, even though
They'd no idea what to do or say.
This is their house as much as it is yours
I told myself. Don't be a Pharisee.
Then came the homily. And it was plain
This was no heart attack or accident.
It had been in the news; a violent death.
Senseless, the priest said. But I sat there thinking
How every death is violent, anyway.
And there the coffin lay, exposed to view,
Awkward before the altar. One more trip
And that was it; the guy would just be left
Stuck in the ground. The knees that had been grazed
So many times, the hair that had been cut
So many times, the body that had grown
So slowly, and required such looking after,
Would be deposited into a hole
And covered over, and left there for good.
Stop the proceedings, I felt like protesting,
This is a travesty. This can't be done
In half an hour. It felt downright obscene.
A man is a million men. A life is a million lives.
Each death should get a hundred funerals
A thousand funerals, or none at all.
How don't these people know the world has ended?
Of course, I didn't care a hoot for him
And they all loved or liked him. But so what?
My horror was untinged by sentiment.
I didn't sign the book. I fled the scene.
If only death was terrible! But death
Is trivial as a cancelled train. Death is
An incident, the business of a day.
Oh Christ, the tears you shed for Lazarus!
Teach us those tears, teach us those tears, oh Christ!
The Hypocrisy of the Labour Party
I logged on to the online edition of the Irish Times just now, and this headline really jumped out at me:
Restrictive Regime on Abortion will be Agreed by the government, Rabbite Says.
Why did it leap out at me? Because of the conjunction of the terms "restrictive", "abortion", and the photograph of Pat Rabbite directly underneath.
The report says:
Speaking in Dublin today, the Labour Party minister acknowledged the “delicate and sensitive” nature of the issue but said he believed the Government would produce “a workable solution”.
I would guess that pretty much every Labour TD, and most of the active members of the Irish Labour party, believe in abortion on demand, and further believe that the issue is not "delicate and sensitive" but clear cut. The fact that they are willing to use the Savita Halappanavar case, and professions of concern about women's mental health, as a pretext to establish the principle of abortion in Ireland is pretty hypocritical and cynical.
They should come out and say what they believe in loud and clear. At least Ivana Bacick does that much.
Restrictive Regime on Abortion will be Agreed by the government, Rabbite Says.
Why did it leap out at me? Because of the conjunction of the terms "restrictive", "abortion", and the photograph of Pat Rabbite directly underneath.
The report says:
Speaking in Dublin today, the Labour Party minister acknowledged the “delicate and sensitive” nature of the issue but said he believed the Government would produce “a workable solution”.
I would guess that pretty much every Labour TD, and most of the active members of the Irish Labour party, believe in abortion on demand, and further believe that the issue is not "delicate and sensitive" but clear cut. The fact that they are willing to use the Savita Halappanavar case, and professions of concern about women's mental health, as a pretext to establish the principle of abortion in Ireland is pretty hypocritical and cynical.
They should come out and say what they believe in loud and clear. At least Ivana Bacick does that much.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
Fear Itself (1)
Last night, I met up with an old friend, who shares (amongst other things) my interest in horror movies and horror books. As usual, the conversation touched on the horror genre (though it also took in political correctness, the Office, weird customers-- we both work in libraries, after all-- Woody Allen, and lots of other stuff.)
So, coming home through the rain today, I found myself thinking about horror-- and fear.
Lots of people have asked the question; why do people enjoy being scared? It's one of those wonderful questions which is never in any serious danger of being answered. I've read and heard so many attempts to answer it, and none of them satisfied me in the slightest.
In fact, I'm not going to make any effort to answer it here. I just wanted to talk about fear, and the enjoyment of fear.
First off, I want to say that I think a lot of the appeal of horror has nothing to do with fear at all, at least not directly. To a great extent, we enjoy horror because of its atmosphere. There is a charm to darkness, and solitude, and mists, and moonlight, and shadows, and all the other props of the horror genre, that has little to do with fear. Perhaps the charm might be better described as romantic, or Gothic (even Gothick, if you like), or melancholy.
Horror is also about the outsider, and almost everybody (at one time or another) feels like an outsider, or wants to be an outsider. I think the horror genre appeals to the eternal teenager inside us-- the part that never stops feeling misunderstood, and not listened to, and a misfit in the sunlit, cheerful, everyday world. Vampires and werewolves and witches were paradoxically seductive creatures long before the Twilight saga, or even Interview with a Vampire, came along to labour the point so painfully.
(I was going to write that the physical transformations that so often feature in horror-- turning into a werewolf being the most obvious-- would also speak to adolescents, since their bodies are going through a rather dramatic process of change. But, you know, I think that's the kind of psychological claptrap that is bandied about all too freely. I don't remember being in the least bit traumatised or disoriented by the physical changes of puberty. Of course, it's probably a bigger deal for girls-- and one of the best horror films I ever saw in the cinema, a werewolf film about two teenage sisters called Ginger Snaps, had the rather witty tagline: "It's not called the curse for nothing.")
But I think that horror appeals to an even earlier stratum of our personalities than our teenage selves-- it awakens the child in us. Childhood is magical because it is full of wonder, and how can you have wonder without dread? When everything looms larger, how can it not loom more threatening too? Is there ultimately any stark distinction between wonder and dread? Are they both not simply the state of our spiritual pores, so to speak, being open?
I think everything that awakens a sense of wonder tends to appeal to us. The horror genre inspires us with a particular sort of fear that is especially coupled with wonder; it is very often the fear of the not-quite-known, the shadowy, the partially-guessed. For my own part, I find that horror stories that deal with some very concrete fear-- for instance, a maniac stalking somebody-- are less satisfying than horror stories that feature strange happenings and unearthly disturbances.
I have more to write about this, but not right now. I'll just publish this and then expand it later.
So, coming home through the rain today, I found myself thinking about horror-- and fear.
Lots of people have asked the question; why do people enjoy being scared? It's one of those wonderful questions which is never in any serious danger of being answered. I've read and heard so many attempts to answer it, and none of them satisfied me in the slightest.
In fact, I'm not going to make any effort to answer it here. I just wanted to talk about fear, and the enjoyment of fear.
First off, I want to say that I think a lot of the appeal of horror has nothing to do with fear at all, at least not directly. To a great extent, we enjoy horror because of its atmosphere. There is a charm to darkness, and solitude, and mists, and moonlight, and shadows, and all the other props of the horror genre, that has little to do with fear. Perhaps the charm might be better described as romantic, or Gothic (even Gothick, if you like), or melancholy.
Horror is also about the outsider, and almost everybody (at one time or another) feels like an outsider, or wants to be an outsider. I think the horror genre appeals to the eternal teenager inside us-- the part that never stops feeling misunderstood, and not listened to, and a misfit in the sunlit, cheerful, everyday world. Vampires and werewolves and witches were paradoxically seductive creatures long before the Twilight saga, or even Interview with a Vampire, came along to labour the point so painfully.
(I was going to write that the physical transformations that so often feature in horror-- turning into a werewolf being the most obvious-- would also speak to adolescents, since their bodies are going through a rather dramatic process of change. But, you know, I think that's the kind of psychological claptrap that is bandied about all too freely. I don't remember being in the least bit traumatised or disoriented by the physical changes of puberty. Of course, it's probably a bigger deal for girls-- and one of the best horror films I ever saw in the cinema, a werewolf film about two teenage sisters called Ginger Snaps, had the rather witty tagline: "It's not called the curse for nothing.")
But I think that horror appeals to an even earlier stratum of our personalities than our teenage selves-- it awakens the child in us. Childhood is magical because it is full of wonder, and how can you have wonder without dread? When everything looms larger, how can it not loom more threatening too? Is there ultimately any stark distinction between wonder and dread? Are they both not simply the state of our spiritual pores, so to speak, being open?
I think everything that awakens a sense of wonder tends to appeal to us. The horror genre inspires us with a particular sort of fear that is especially coupled with wonder; it is very often the fear of the not-quite-known, the shadowy, the partially-guessed. For my own part, I find that horror stories that deal with some very concrete fear-- for instance, a maniac stalking somebody-- are less satisfying than horror stories that feature strange happenings and unearthly disturbances.
I have more to write about this, but not right now. I'll just publish this and then expand it later.
Sunday, April 21, 2013
The Atheist Peril
A thought struck me today. (This rarely happens, as I keep well out of range of most thoughts, but it's impossible to be entirely protected.) Some time in 2010 (I can't remember exactly when) I began to seriously practice the Catholic faith, having been an agnostic tending towards atheism for as long as I could remember. Even before that, I did a lot of reading and thinking about religion-- I came across an email I wrote to an agnostic blogger in 2007.
To me, for all that time, the great adversary was atheism. Of course, the New Atheism was at full tide at this period (it has receded somewhat since), but it wasn't just atheism as a body of opinion that seemed daunting to me. It was atheism as an intellectual position, since there seemed to me then such a lot to be said for the theory that there was no Deity of any kind. Atheism seemed like the argument to beat. The conflict between faith and atheism seemed like the great drama of our era.
Today I realized how far, without even noticing it, I've drifted from this attitude. I no longer think of atheism as the great intellectual fortress to be stormed, or the grand adversary in a cultural war of ideas. I do not believe that most of the post-Christians in Europe are people who have thought through the arguments for and against religious belief, and for and against Christianity, and who have thereby become convinced atheists. I think that, for the most part, they have simply imbibed an atmosphere that is antagonistic to Christianity-- in fact, an atmosphere that is hotile to any kind of serious philosophy of life whatsoever.
And insofar as there is a serious intellectual adversary to Christianity in modern society, it is not atheism or scientific materialism, but liberalism. And atheism is merely a flag of convenience for liberalism. People embrace atheism because it gives (or they think it gives) a metaphysical basis to their liberalism, rather than embracing liberalism as a consequence of an atheism to which they arrived independently.
Atheism, to be blunt, doesn't seem a very big deal to me anymore.
To me, for all that time, the great adversary was atheism. Of course, the New Atheism was at full tide at this period (it has receded somewhat since), but it wasn't just atheism as a body of opinion that seemed daunting to me. It was atheism as an intellectual position, since there seemed to me then such a lot to be said for the theory that there was no Deity of any kind. Atheism seemed like the argument to beat. The conflict between faith and atheism seemed like the great drama of our era.
Today I realized how far, without even noticing it, I've drifted from this attitude. I no longer think of atheism as the great intellectual fortress to be stormed, or the grand adversary in a cultural war of ideas. I do not believe that most of the post-Christians in Europe are people who have thought through the arguments for and against religious belief, and for and against Christianity, and who have thereby become convinced atheists. I think that, for the most part, they have simply imbibed an atmosphere that is antagonistic to Christianity-- in fact, an atmosphere that is hotile to any kind of serious philosophy of life whatsoever.
And insofar as there is a serious intellectual adversary to Christianity in modern society, it is not atheism or scientific materialism, but liberalism. And atheism is merely a flag of convenience for liberalism. People embrace atheism because it gives (or they think it gives) a metaphysical basis to their liberalism, rather than embracing liberalism as a consequence of an atheism to which they arrived independently.
Atheism, to be blunt, doesn't seem a very big deal to me anymore.
Vocations, Vocations, Vocations
Today is Vocations Sunday. Our priest gave us the depressing news (well, it was news to me) that there will be no priests ordained in the Dublin diocese this year. He also mentioned that two Dublin men entered the seminary this year-- which is better than nothing, but there's no guarantee that they will actually become priests in seven years.
The dearth of vocations is definitely the most depressing part of being an Irish Catholic today. Vocations are so rare now that a new vocation to the priesthood, diaconate, or an order of nuns or friars is a news story in the Irish Catholic newspaper.
Our parish priest today raised the matter of clerical celibacy in his homily. He said that he thought priests should be allowed to marry, but that he personally couldn't imagine combining family life with his responsibilites as a priest. I wonder why he thinks other priests would be able to do so.
I am entirely opposed to the abolition of priestly celibacy. I know that even many conservative Catholics like John Haldane have made the case for married priests. (See here.) However, I think this concession would be a terrible mistake.
People sometimes claim that clerical celibacy was only introduced in the eleventh century, sometimes adding the claim that it was all to do with inheritance rights. But the truth is that clerical celibacy was the ideal from the early centuries of Christianity (there was a proposal to make it mandatory at the First Council of Nicea in 325) and Popes made strong efforts to enforce it for many centuries before the First Latern Council in 1123, when the discipline was firmly established.
Vocations are actually going up in England and America. The director of vocations for England, Fr Christopher Jamison, was quoted in The Catholic Herald last week as saying: "Celibacy is not something that young men...say is their biggest obstacle on the path to priesthood."
Celibacy emphasises the specialness of the priestly vocation. It ensures that only men fully committed to the faith and willing to make great personal sacrifices for it will enter the priesthood. It allows priests to focus more fully upon their calling. And it gains tremendous respect from secular cuture, even when that respect comes in the disguised forms of sneers and mockery and criticism.
I sincerely believe it would be better for Catholics in the West to have to travel long distances to attend Mass than it would be to abolish clerical celibacy. Perhaps we would prize priests and the priesthood and the sacraments more than we do if our access to them was less easy.
How, then, do we reverse the decline in vocations?
Above all, by prayer. Every practicing Catholic in Ireland should pray for new vocations every single day.
But we should also help encourage more vocations by being more vocal about our faith, more willing to talk to people about it, and more evangelistic. I never agree with the people who say that faith should be a private matter. Surely every vocation begins in the imagination-- by the imagination being fired in childhood or in the teenage years, most probably. How will boys and young men be drawn towards the priesthood if they see Catholicism as a kind of hobby or social club? But if they witness that the Catholic faith is the most important thing in the lives of grown-up people they admire, then they will also see it as something to be taken very seriously, something worthy of a life's work.
Prayer and profession, not panic. That is the way to go.
(It should go without saying that this is simply the opinion of a Catholic layman, with no theological training whatsoever.)
The dearth of vocations is definitely the most depressing part of being an Irish Catholic today. Vocations are so rare now that a new vocation to the priesthood, diaconate, or an order of nuns or friars is a news story in the Irish Catholic newspaper.
Our parish priest today raised the matter of clerical celibacy in his homily. He said that he thought priests should be allowed to marry, but that he personally couldn't imagine combining family life with his responsibilites as a priest. I wonder why he thinks other priests would be able to do so.
I am entirely opposed to the abolition of priestly celibacy. I know that even many conservative Catholics like John Haldane have made the case for married priests. (See here.) However, I think this concession would be a terrible mistake.
People sometimes claim that clerical celibacy was only introduced in the eleventh century, sometimes adding the claim that it was all to do with inheritance rights. But the truth is that clerical celibacy was the ideal from the early centuries of Christianity (there was a proposal to make it mandatory at the First Council of Nicea in 325) and Popes made strong efforts to enforce it for many centuries before the First Latern Council in 1123, when the discipline was firmly established.
Vocations are actually going up in England and America. The director of vocations for England, Fr Christopher Jamison, was quoted in The Catholic Herald last week as saying: "Celibacy is not something that young men...say is their biggest obstacle on the path to priesthood."
Celibacy emphasises the specialness of the priestly vocation. It ensures that only men fully committed to the faith and willing to make great personal sacrifices for it will enter the priesthood. It allows priests to focus more fully upon their calling. And it gains tremendous respect from secular cuture, even when that respect comes in the disguised forms of sneers and mockery and criticism.
I sincerely believe it would be better for Catholics in the West to have to travel long distances to attend Mass than it would be to abolish clerical celibacy. Perhaps we would prize priests and the priesthood and the sacraments more than we do if our access to them was less easy.
How, then, do we reverse the decline in vocations?
Above all, by prayer. Every practicing Catholic in Ireland should pray for new vocations every single day.
But we should also help encourage more vocations by being more vocal about our faith, more willing to talk to people about it, and more evangelistic. I never agree with the people who say that faith should be a private matter. Surely every vocation begins in the imagination-- by the imagination being fired in childhood or in the teenage years, most probably. How will boys and young men be drawn towards the priesthood if they see Catholicism as a kind of hobby or social club? But if they witness that the Catholic faith is the most important thing in the lives of grown-up people they admire, then they will also see it as something to be taken very seriously, something worthy of a life's work.
Prayer and profession, not panic. That is the way to go.
(It should go without saying that this is simply the opinion of a Catholic layman, with no theological training whatsoever.)
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