The next national ecclesial Conference on vocations is due to be held in Verona from 16 to 20 October 2006. A preparatory stage for it was represented by the annual national conference of the National Vocations Centre (NVC), held in Rome from 3 to 5 January on the theme: “How the vocational ministry bears witness to the Risen Christ, hope of the world”. “The overall ministry of the Church must weave an ever closer fabric of personal and institutional contacts in which vocations can be discovered, encouraged and cultivated”, Father Luca Bonari, who heads the NVC, explained to SIR. He also described the objectives of the meeting, which was attended by members of the regional and diocesan institutes for vocations, representatives for vocational animation of the institutes of consecrated life, rectors of seminaries with their own seminarians, parish priests and their assistants, and regional and diocesan delegates for family and youth pastoral care. Discussion focused not least on the current crisis of vocations and analysed the data of the Pontifical Handbook for 2005, which speaks of 405,450 priests in the world, of whom 268,041 members of the diocesan and 137,409 of the religious clergy; in 2002, by contrast, there were 405,058 priests, subdivided into 267,334 diocesan and 137,724 religious clergy. During the conference the preparatory aids and material for the next World Day of Prayer for Vocations, which will be celebrated on 7 May 2006 on the theme: “May you too in Christ give life to hope”, were also distributed.
