The monasteries, already severe even by medieval standards, made their rule even harsher. Food was even more unpalatable. The monks shivered through the Midnight Office in churches no longer warmed. The rule of never speaking was strictly enforced and monks were never alone. Yet the abbeys of the Reformed Cistercians, the so-called Trappists, had to multiply daughter foundations to accommodate the number of monks. Novices had to sleep on the floor of the corridors since all the cells were full. Nothing seemed to stem the flow of young men aspiring to a lifetime of extreme austerity.

Was all this happening in some dark corner of the Middle Ages? No, we are talking about Britain and America in the nineteen-forties and -fifties when soldiers were being demobilised after the war. What they had seen of the world during their wartime service had made them turn to Christ. Some ex-servicemen joined the secular clergy to make Christ live in the souls of their parishioners, some sought to relieve the suffering and religious ignorance in the world by joining the missionary and active orders, and others went to pray for the world in strict contemplative orders such as the Trappists and Carthusians.

How is it that now we hear so much about a dearth of vocations? There is much confused thinking on the subject, largely because of a failure to make distinctions. The most obvious is the distinction between the priestly vocation and the religious vocation.
This is because the Latin branch of the Catholic Church has imposed celibacy on all priests, even on the secular priests serving under diocesan bishops. This celibacy was introduced by a reforming pope at a time when barbarian tribes in Europe were settling into the feudal system and there was a real danger that under this regime church property might become the monopoly of clerical families, sons inheriting both clerical duties and sources of income even though lacking spiritual motives.

But the consequences were not always positive. Poor families pushed their sons into the clergy in order to have at least one member of the family educated enough to protect family interests; some became saints but others were led by the enforced celibacy to practise morals that made a mockery of celibacy and its supposed spiritual superiority.

Unable to find enough men of merit willing to remain unmarried in order to become priests, bishops have often been driven to ordain individuals who simply were not up to the mark. This has led to the scandals that have demoralised Catholics in Western countries of late. Speaking of my own experience, during my post-World War II military service I knew one chaplain who was a saint and apostle, greatly revered, a Capuchin friar incidentally. But there were other chaplains at such a spiritual loose end that they were unable to respond to simple servicemen who had far greater spiritual motivation and wanted Christian life.

The shortage of priests has meant that celibate clergy very often live alone, particularly in remoter parishes. Only the strongest characters can resist loneliness and depression. The sight of a lonely, weary, depressed priest shuffling sadly around the presbytery of a parish where social and spiritual life are dead, is not one to encourage young men to enter the seminary.

The Society of Missionaries of Africa founded by Cardinal Lavigerie, the so-called White Fathers, now half of them black with an African Superior General, have the wise practice of there being at least three priests or brothers in any one post. But this means that the posts are separated by great distances and Christian life and worship have to be maintained in the villages by unordained catechists who can be married.

In the Eastern Catholic (and Orthodox) Churches, bishops are free to ordain married men, who are often very spiritually motivated and zealous. Unfortunately, the influence of Latin missionaries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries meant that married clergy were considered inferior and education was confined to celibate candidates for ordination. We can be grateful that this attitude is very slowly changing. By recent decree of Rome, married oriental priests can now work in Latin-dominated countries while married Anglican and Lutheran clergy who convert can be re-ordained; in fact in Sweden most of the Latin clergy are now married, being formed largely of converts. With vast numbers of Catholics in South America and elsewhere spread over immense areas, one cannot help thinking that old prejudices will finally have to disappear. Can it be maintained that Christ made a mistake in choosing married men as his apostles, even the first pope, Peter, being married, as we learn from the illness of his mother-in-law? One married man I knew attended daily Mass, studied the Faith and its defence, prayed much and converted twelve agnostics operating on the London Stock Exchange; could he not have made a good priest during his retirement?

We do not mean to attack celibacy. The Churches of East and West will always need celibate secular priests. But the motives for accepting celibacy must be spiritual ones and the celibate priests must live in community to give each other spiritual, social and intellectual support, as in the minsters of Anglo-Saxon England.

With more priests, including ones whose families will help foster Christian social life, and livelier parishes, there will be more vocations for the celibate clergy and the religious orders.

This leads us to consideration of male religious vocations, that is to say of recruitment for the religious orders. Some communities are purely contemplative, although even these pray for the missions and send them part of their profits on their work. One Benedictine community in the USA lives by computer programming, connected with civilisation by a couple of wires while living in a desert as did Saints Anthony and Pachomius. But most combine a rule of prayer and contemplation with some activity such as teaching or missionary or social work.

This means that such Orders must motivate and attract men on both the spiritual and the material levels. First, on the spiritual level, they must attract men who want to live in intimacy with Christ and this can only be done by fidelity to the community’s rule for community life, prayer and spiritual exercises. Inevitably, attempts to soften the rule to make it more acceptable in the modern world will only have the contrary effect, whereas declining communities have been known to revive precisely by a return to tradition 1. The Carthusians have the proud motto, Never reformed! meaning never needing reform. Though never numerous, their strict eremitical life has always ensured their survival and their witness within the Church and now they are considering extension into Asia, Africa and South America. One of their attractions loved by them is the three or four hours at night spent in recitation of Matins and Lauds. Fasting is severe. But an Order in which there is no love for its spiritual rule no longer has any reason to exist and no attraction. In these days nobody will want to live in a religious community just to be able to eat three square meals a day.

Vocations to the contemplative life of pure spirituality will always be found but will always be exceptional. Most spiritually motivated men and women are also drawn to some action for Christ such as teaching and they must be offered a field for this and not be sent to live alone as parish priests. The above-mentioned missionary society had a number of British and Irish senior seminarists whose enthusiasm was maintained by dreams of adventure among African tribes and wildlife (a member of this society claimed to be the only bishop who had ever shot a lion in a nuns’ toilet!) However, they found that all those who were ordained in the UK finished by being teachers in the British seminaries or running a house for European fathers studying at London University. Hardly any of those with whom I studied remained in the Society. I didn’t!

To sum up, for a religious order or congregation or society there must be spiritual motivation and in most cases motivation through activity as well. These must be clearly defined in theory and practice.

1- A case in point is the Stift Heilingenkreuz Cistercian monastery near Vienna founded in 1133 and now receiving 100,OOO visitors a year. With at present ninety monks plus ten new novices last year, their number has doubled since a revival of the strict rule in the 11960s, following the return of Abbot Karl Braunsdorfer from Vatican II. Its record of liturgical chant topped the UK sales charts in 2008. Its theological academy open to lay men and women as well as priests has three hundred students. Source: The Catholic Herald (UK) 25-6/03/2016.

A case in point is the Stift Heiligenkreuz (Holy Cross) Cistercian monastery near Vienna founded in 1133 and now receiving 100,000 visitors a year. With at present ninety monks, plus ten new novices in 2015, their number has doubled since a revival of the strict rule in the 1960s following the return of Abbot Karl Braunsdorfer from Vatican II. Its record of liturgical chant topped the UK sales charts in 2008. Its theological academy, open to lay men and women as well as priests, has three hundred students. Source: The Catholic Herald (UK) 25-26/03/2016.