Catholic dioceses in England and Wales have intensified their appeals for priestly vocations, as bishops respond to uneven ordination numbers with fresh campaigns, pastoral letters and calls to prayer. The picture that emerges is mixed: while several dioceses will see no ordinations this year, others report rising numbers in seminary and speak of a renewed seriousness about vocational discernment.
In Cardiff-Menevia, Archbishop Mark O’Toole used Good Shepherd Sunday to urge unmarried men across the archdiocese to ask whether God might be calling them to the priesthood. “Without the priesthood there is no Mass, no sacraments,” he wrote, insisting that priestly vocations are not a specialist concern but “everybody’s business”. At present, only one man is training for the priesthood in the Welsh archdiocese.
