Vocations and ordination

He has served as a dedicated high school religion teacher and guidance counselor, a parish priest, director of special projects for the Catholic Education Office, chaplain of St. Vincent's Home for Children, editor of the St. Louis Review and now pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in University City.

Msgr. Edward Sudekum shrugged his shoulders when asked about the many skills he has developed in his variety of assignments as a priest.

VATICAN CITY — The number of Catholic priests in the world has increased consistently over the past decade and the "relative superabundance" of priests in Europe and North America has begun to attenuate, the Vatican said.

The "relative superabundance" refers to the percentage of the world's priests who live in Europe and North America compared to the percentage of the world's Catholics who live there.

The new rector and president of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in Shrewsbury is the co-founder of the Institute for Priestly Formation in Omaha, Neb. 

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson appointed Jesuit Father John Horn to the position effective July 1.

VATICAN CITY — Ordaining five bishops — two Vatican diplomats and three secretaries of Vatican congregations — Pope Benedict XVI said the prelates were called to help people recognize and respond to their yearning for holiness and goodness.

"Even if it seems that in much of the modern world, people today want to turn their backs on God and think that faith is a thing of the past, there still exists a yearning that justice, love and peace finally would be established, that poverty and suffering would be overcome and that people would find joy," the pope said.

WASHINGTON — Women entering religious orders today are highly educated and active in parish ministries, according to a new national survey.

The results of "The Profession Class of 2010: Survey of Women Religious Professing Perpetual Vows" were released in advance of World Day for Consecrated Life Feb. 2.

It was conducted by the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate and commissioned by the U.S. bishops' Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations.

VATICAN CITY — After 150 years in Rome, some things at the Pontifical North American College are improving, but traditions and the root of its mission in the formation of future priests continue.

Pope Pius IX is considered the college’s first founder, having approved its creation in 1859. In 1953, Pope Pius XII then dedicated the “new” college at its location on one of the storied hills of Rome.