I am living in Southern Califronia, and maybe this is just something totally unknown to folks outside California...
I am from a parish that had a LARGE Vietnamese community. They only got one Mass a week, and none of the parish priests could do it, they got a local Salesian to help with that. And every Sunday the parish was full. And i was from a very very hug parish, like seeting for eight hundred. Anyways, i have heard stories about the few young people who have left to join religious orders.
We also had a Missionary over one time, just before i moved out, who was explaining the vocation situation in Vietnam, and that Seminaries were monitered and restricted by the government. They had to approve of all those who entered, and all who got ordained. So most religious order priests just left the country...
Anyways, i mentioned elsewhere about a Celibacy Workshop i went to in Los Angeles. There was probably around sixty in attendance. I would say forty of those were all from one order. The Lovers of the Holy Cross, and all of them were in all levels of formation. And they all had habits, of course distinct for the various levels.
And it just gets me thinking, because i knew many Vietnamese, and i would see in the local Dioceses of Southern California how every year a couple of Vietnamese men would get ordained. It is just encouraged and valued amongst Vietnamese Catholics to have Vocations in the family.
It is probably similar to many Irish or Italian families of old. They would encourage and gently push their kids into convents and seminaries.
But anyways, somehow i feel that the Vietnamese, Philipinos, and Africans are gonna save the American Catholic Church.
SHALOM