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	Priestly Vocations Starting to Ascend By Karen Maeshiro, Staff Writer LA Daily News July 4, 2008 http://www.dailynews.com/search/ci_9790035?IADID=Search-www.dailynews.com-www.dailynews.com As the U.S. Catholic Church revives from scandal, clergy ranks increase William Crowe Jr. made a good living as a machine-shop worker and later as a computer programmer, but he always sensed something was missing. Though he was materially successful, there was a spiritual void that possessions could never fill. A product of Catholic schools, the 49-year-old Granada Hills man did not realize his true calling until he started becoming active in his church again during the 1990s. "I began to realize that God was calling me to work in the church," Crowe said. "The emptiness started disappearing. The satisfaction was there. I felt God was preparing me to do something." Crowe was among 12 men ordained May 31 by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Angels in downtown L.A. The 2008 class is the largest ordained for the Los Angeles Archdiocese in the past 19 years. Most years, the class size had averaged between four and five, according to the archdiocese. Even as the Catholic Church recovers from a sex-abuse scandal that battered its public reputation and its bank account, the number of men entering the priesthood has started gradually increasing, researchers say. For decades, the priesthood had been declining as a vocation, at least in the United States. Some researchers attribute the recent increase to greater efforts to recruit Catholic immigrants. Also, more mature men are becoming priesthood candidates after having worked at other occupations for years. Between 1965 and 2000, ordinations of new priests across the country declined by 55 percent, according to the Georgetown University Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. But in recent years, they rose slightly - from 442 in 2000 to 456 in 2007. "The church is trying very hard to bring this out - to let young men know that this is a worthwhile endeavor and noble calling," said CARA senior research associate Mary Gautier. The average age of U.S. priests is over 60, and the average age of priests ordained this year is 37, an indication more men are entering the priesthood after other careers, Gautier said. Crowe said the sex-abuse scandal did not make him think twice about entering the priesthood. "I saw it as a purifying of the church, and I was thinking I was called by God to do this," Crowe said. "I knew God was calling me into this, and he would give me the strength to get through it." One way archdioceses have been recruiting new priests is through the ranks of Catholic immigrants. One-third of this year's new U.S. priests were born outside the country, up from 22 percent in 1999, with the largest numbers coming from Mexico, Vietnam, Poland and the Philippines, according to a CARA study done for the nation's Conference of Catholic Bishops. The faces of Catholicism have changed in recent years. A survey this year by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that immigration is a factor in explaining how the Catholic share of the U.S. population has held fairly steady over recent decades, although former Catholics outnumber converts 4-1. The survey found that 46percent of all immigrants to the U.S. are Catholic, compared with just 21 percent of the native-born population, and that 82 percent of the Catholic immigrants were born in Latin America. Besides Los Angeles, other dioceses around Southern California have seen increases in new priests. In San Bernardino, the diocese ordained six new priests this year, the most in its 30-year history. The diocese had ordained only a total of seven in the entire previous decade, according to spokesman John Andrews. "The diocese has been much more focused on promoting vocation to priesthood throughout the parishes," Andrews said. "It's really important when someone is considering this that they have a lot of support from their parish." In Los Angeles, the 2008 archdiocese ordination class reflects the national trends. The men range in age from 28 to 49. Six were born in other countries, and Crowe is among eight who had secular careers before entering their religious vocation. All 12 of the new Los Angeles priests attended St. John's Seminary in Camarillo and completed yearlong internships at parishes throughout the archdiocese as transitional deacons. For some, like Timothy Klosterman of Acton and Preston Passos of Canoga Park, the road to religious life began while they were in their teens. Born in Honolulu, the 34-year-old Passos was about 13 or 14 when he first had thoughts about becoming a priest. A source of inspiration was the deep faith of his grandmother, who took Passos and all his cousins to church and made sure they received their religious education. "I served from a very young age at my parish in Waikiki. I was inspired by the religious priests and sisters, like a second family for me," said Passos. "I knew through interacting with them that that was what I wanted to do." Klosterman, 29, said a key for him was attending a retreat at St. Andrew's Abbey in Valyermo while he was a student at a Catholic high school in Lancaster. Before the retreat, he said, he "didn't see much of a future for myself" and was struggling academically. "It started by really being helped by the (abbey) monks. "I began to see how I could help others, not necessarily as a priest but as a teacher, counselor or psychologist," Klosterman said. "It kind of gave me a mission and something to work towards. The more time I spent in prayer and really reflecting about what life is all about, I began to think about and discern a vocation to the priesthood." When Klosterman celebrated his first Mass in his home parish, St. Mary's Catholic Church in Palmdale, he felt filled with contentment and happiness. "That was a wonderful experience. It was full of, to put it in church terms, grace," Klosterman said. "I felt like I was in the right place." Crowe, who entered the seminary in 2003 after obtaining a bachelor's degree in theology and a master's in pastoral studies from Loyola Marymount University, said his journey is not over. "Now that I'm ordained, I'm taking another step, so to speak," Crowe said. "I feel very good about that. I feel God is with me."
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