Sep 26, 2005 / 22:00 pm
National and international leaders of the Serra Club, a group dedicated to promoting priestly vocations, gathered for a convention last weekend.
Bishop Leonard Blair of Toledo celebrated the mass Saturday evening for the three-day Serra Club Great Lakes Regional Convention, held at the Veterans Memorial Civic Center.
During his homily, the bishop shed some light and cast some fears on the issue of current priest shortage in the Catholic Church.
According to limanews.com, he said it is easy for people to worry that Catholicism is on the downswing in an era of increased secularism, but he pointed to the words in the Gospel of Luke-"The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few"-and said they were still true today.
There exists a strong base of good people in the Church, of laborers that include priests and other clergy, he reportedly said. There will always be a need for priests, but there will always be a harvest, too.
"A vocation is never just what we do, it’s who we are," he was quoted as saying.
Bishop Blair encouraged the Serra Club in its mission of promoting and inviting new men to consider the priesthood.