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The religious orders in Malta are facing a decline. But what are the contributing factors? Matthew Vella investigates
The Statistical Yearbook of the Church reveals that in 1985 there were 917,432 women with temporary or perpetual vows, in the Church world-wide; in 2001 there were 792,317.
During those 16 years, the figure for Europe declined from 493,045 to 357,840. The number of women religious is constantly decreasing in Latin America, North America and Oceania, while it is increasing in Africa and Asia.
According to the same source, in 1985 there were 150,161 religious-order priests; in 2001 they decreased to 138,619. Over those 16 years, Europe declined from 71,642 to 62,546.
Everywhere else save for Africa and Asia, the Pope’s army is in the decline. Even in Poland, the homeland of John Paul II, the number of deacons declines by an exceptional 59 per cent.
At the heart of the general decline in vocations, Malta – which has the highest number of priests in the world for every 1,000 inhabitants – is also experiencing its own crisis.
“In my view it is consonant with a universal decline in religious vocations, and that is a preoccupying phenomenon,” Fr Joe Inguanez, director of the Church’s DISCERN Institute for Research on the Signs of the Times, says. However, he notes that it is positive that the contemplative orders, also known as cloisters, are having more vocations than the rest.
“Vocations are in a crisis especially in Europe, whilst elsewhere in Asia and Africa they are increasing,” Sr Gemma Farrugia, secretary to the Female Religious Superiors of Malta, says. “Female vocations in Malta have not increased, unlike men, and it has been in decline since the nineties. It is a complex problem. It very much depends on the current environment and the way society is changing in the world today. If there aren’t families which cannot prepare children to undertake such a religious life this is just bound to continue. It’s a worldwide tragedy when these values disappear,” she laments.
Crisis of faith
As figures confirm, Malta’s religious orders are either going strong or they face imminent extinction: the Jesuits and the Franciscans have the highest number of male religious, whilst the La Salle Frères, with just 20 brothers, are an ageing community, although their youngest member is 38. The Missionary Society of St Paul, of which several of its members were embroiled in the child sex scandals back in October 2003, had no new vocations so far this year.
Societal changes today have become paramount in the universal decline of vocations with the changes in the relation between the church and an ever more secularised society. The rise of inspirational lay preachers, as proven in the phenomenon of Maltese religious healers like Dr John and Edward Spiteri, has contributed towards a more fragmented community of followers. With their emphasis on physical pan and despair, the preachers have created a new means of communication with so-called ordinary people, whose experience of life demands a more, instantaneous, ‘heals-on-wheels’ approach.
“Definitely sociological factors are having a great impact on the decline in vocations, especially the consumerist and immediate-gratification culture we are living in,” Fr Iguanez says. “But I still hold that at the bottom of this, there is a crisis of faith. As a Church we should work much harder on this. This is our home ground.”
In 2004, the Archbishop’s seminary at Tal-Virtu received five new seminarians, an increase of 17.2 per cent over the previous year, which had welcomed just two new seminarians in two years. Today, there is a total of 34 seminarians, up from 27 in 2001.
That crisis of faith may be really shining – the Maltese Curia today faces more vocal criticism than ever, and priests may no longer form the centre of prayer as they once did before. The dominance of the Church, contested vocally by religious and lay people alike, has become the scene of a new upcoming order – the non-religious who believe that the Bible is not exclusively the domain of institutionalised Christianity.
“This witness which many of us are giving leaves much to be desired,” Fr Iguanez says. “Sometimes we give the idea that we are carrying a heavy burden, rather than carrying the flame of the gospel’s ideals, that we are moribund rather than resurrected, that we are prophets of doom and gloom rather than prophets of life and light.”
Vocational efforts
With the lowest number of members in its order at 20, Brother Martin Borg of the La Salle Frères says that it is remarkable how with a student of 3,000 in two Lasallian colleges, the brothers have had little success at achieving new vocations.
“Although we are always urged to do something, the only vocations we see from the students go to other religious orders and the diocese. We never get any for the brothers. I think there is still a mentality that since we’re not priests and we don’t consecrate, this order is not the same as others.”
Bro Martin Borg concedes that the life of priest is considered to have “more status” than that of a brother. “The Lasallian brothers pursue Christian education and an academic life. A young person may think a priest has more status, but brothers are constantly studying and updating themselves in education, as well as being involved in a lot of missionary work.”
Celibacy however, could also be a factor that has prevented an increase in more vocations. “There is religious life without a radical discipleship of the evangelical counsels (rules of conduct laid down in the Gospel), and these include celibacy for the kingdom of God. I am sorry to say it, but I feel that this radical discipleship has waned a lot,” Fr Joe Iguanez says.
“Amongst the female orders, in the same manner a woman chooses a man, we have the same intimate relationship with God built on great faith. You cannot explain it,” Sr Gemma Farrugia says. “You have to experience it. As a missionary myself, I find a family everywhere I go and we share our life and support each other.”
But the real ‘crisis,’ as Sr Gemma Farrugia calls it, is the fact that children are no longer reared into taking up a vocation. And the effects have been felt as the army of lay religious persons increases whilst that of the priesthood decreases. It is in fact generally remarked that despite calls for empirical research on the future of the priesthood to be taken seriously, bishops and church administrators rarely strive to take action.
By the late 1980s, researcher Richard Schoenherr clearly identified a steady increase in the Catholic population coupled by a decline of 40 percent in priests between 1966 and 2005. By 1990, a study of American religious by David Nygren and Miriam Ukeritis showed that religious orders risked paralysis and death within ten years. By 2000, the number of priests serving American parishes was down 28 percent in the last 15 years and the number of lay ministers up 54 percent, concluding that parishes could not serve their members without the continued, “even accelerated” growth of the lay ministry.
“Every congregation has its own way for attracting people to their orders. But this is also something purely personal, and whether you are ready to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to Jesus. There has to be a calling,” Sr Gemma Farrugia says.
Fr Joe Iguanez believes that at the heart of the matter is a lack of understanding of the religious vocations. “It might be that the religious orders are losing out to an increase in lay religious, even as far as the vocations to lay brothers or female religious are concerned. However, this is not a change of mentality. We should stop preaching about or campaigning for vocations, and on this point I include married life, and stop witnessing to them in a radical way.”
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