"One faith,' St. Paul writes (Eph. 4:5). Hold most firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church ... We must hold this for certain, namely: that the faith of the people at the present day is one with the faith of the people in past centuries. Were this not true, then we would be in a different church than they were in and, literally, the Church would not be One."--St. Thomas Aquinas

  

This article was written by Fr. Douglas Clark, Editor of "The Southern Cross", official newspaper of the Diocese of Savannah. Help wanted: priests needed By Father Douglas Clark        The Diocese of Savannah has been blessed in recent decades with a relatively young and active body of priests.   Thanks to several classes of Irish priests in the 1960's and fairly decent numbers of American candidates in the 70's  and  80's,  the diocese reached a peak of 57 diocesan priests active in the diocese in 1983.  Fifteen years later,  we have  43 diocesan  priests active  in the diocese, a decline of nearly one-fourth. Death, retirement and resignation have all taken their tolls. At the same time, the total number of parishes and missions in the diocese has reached 81. Only  the presence of other  priests  from  religious orders and other dioceses has enabled the diocese to continue to minister God's word and sacraments in so many places through out the 90 counties of south Georgia.  The order priests, however, have an average age of 65, while our diocesan priests are on average 54. Their numbers are, in fact, declining at a faster rate than that of any diocese in this coun-try. The safety net provided by religious orders is rapidly coming unraveled.   And although valiant efforts are being made to promote vocations to the priesthood among our young men, it will be years until these efforts bear sufficient fruit to reverse the downward trend.     In the meantime, good stewardship requires us to allocate our priestly resources as carefully as possible, in part by consolidating small parishes especially when located close to others. For this reason and others the  Savannah  deanery is undertaking a feasibility study of its 13 parishes and two missions, in order to discern how best to organize the Church's ministry in Bryan, Chatham and Effingham counties. And for the same reason, as "Good Shepherd Sunday" approaches,   all Catholics are asked to pray for a more generous response to God's call to priesthood on the part of our young men. To Continue reviewing letters of response concerning this article press "Continue"

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