The National Office for Vocations has announced the start of an “ambitious” three-year National Vocations Framework.Fr Christopher Jamison, Director of the National Office for Vocations, made the announcement today at a press conference at the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales headquarters in London.
He said that the framework would be inspired by the question Pope Benedict XVI asked young people at the Big Assembly in September 2010: “What sort of person would you like to be?”
Fr Jamison said that the aim of the three-year project would be “to help every community” ensure that “every young Catholic person in their area has access to a discernment group and discernment guide”.
Discernment groups, which meet in parishes in one Sunday of every month, give people a chance to talk about their vocation, and many people feel them useful. The number of discernment groups in London has recently increased fourfold.
Fr Jamison added that they would be training a national network of vocations guides so that they could move “from local good practice to national good practice”.
The Bishops of England and Wales adopted the framework at their April 2012 plenary meeting, and Fr Jamison said it would “relate to other work in the pipeline”.
Archbishop Peter Smith of Southwark also praised the young people of the Church, who were far more numerous than was sometimes reported. He also said that young people got a bad deal from the media.
“The media too often [it] criticises youngsters, use the worst possible cases,” he says. “Young people feel they are not appreciated. There are a lot of good, valued members of society.”