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Australia's Post-WYD Religious Resurgence

by Tim Drake Tuesday, August 11, 2009 1:10 PM Comments (0)

We’ve written about this both during and after Sydney’s World Youth Day, but Sunday’s Daily Telegraph reports that Sydney’s seminaries have three times as many seminarians as there were in 2000.

For the first time in 10 years, 60 men are currently studying for the priesthood. Eighty percent of the men are under the age of 30. The youngest is 19. The majority are in their early or mid-20s.

Some have cited World Youth Day’s role.

“There is definitely a renewed interest in the Church and the priesthood,” said Father Anthony Percy, rector of the Seminary of the Good Shepherd, one of two seminaries in Sydney.

“We had the ordination of four priests a few months ago — that hasn’t happened since 1983.”

 

Filed under australia, priestly formation, priests, sydney, vocations, world youth day

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About Tim Drake

Tim Drake
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Tim Drake is an award-winning journalist and author. He serves as senior writer with the National Catholic Register. His articles have appeared in publications such as Faith and Family magazine, Our Sunday Visitor, Catholic World Report, Catholic Exchange.com, Columbia Magazine, Gilbert! Magazine, This Rock Magazine, and many others. Tim has been a guest on both television and radio. He has appeared on Vatican Radio, FOX News, and EWTN. He is a frequent guest on Sirius XM Satellite Radio's The Catholic Channel. He co-hosts the weekly radio program "Register Radio" on EWTN, airing Friday afternoon at 2 p.m. Eastern. Tim has published six books - his most recent being the coffee-table book, Behind Bella: The Amazing Stories of Bella and the Lives it's Changed, (Ignatius Press, 2008) - and has contributed to several others.