Monday, May 31, 2010

The Great Expectations of Archbishop Schnurr

Yesterday's Cincinnati Enquirer featured a lengthy report by Dan Horn on Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West to recruit and attract more men to the priesthood. One of the finer pieces I have read regarding our efforts, and not just because of the lede:


The Rev. Kyle Schnippel was excited last year when he told his boss, Archbishop Dennis Schnurr, that he had recruited 10 young men to become priests in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati.

The new class of seminarians was double the size of the one two years earlier and Schnippel saw the 10 recruits as proof the church was ending a long, downward trend.

But Schnurr seemed unimpressed.

"Well," he said. "Why not 20?"

The conversation reminded Schnippel - and anyone else who has watched the new archbishop work - that Schnurr has great expectations when it comes to finding, training and ordaining more priests.

2 comments:

John F. Kennedy said...

Tough boss!

My prayers are for you both.

Rachel said...

What a great article! Archbishop Schnurr sounds wonderful. The mentality he speaks of, that we'll just have to accept the inevitability of an ever-diminishing number of priests, seems to have been very present here in Los Angeles too. But our new coadjutor bishop is from San Antonio where the number of seminarians doubled during his tenure, so... here's hoping. :)