Several older clergy, who were previously available for confessions, blessings and pastoral conversations, are increasingly absent due to illness, the monastery said.
There are currently twelve monks living in the monastery, the youngest being 45 years old.
Four Fathers, who had played a major role in pilgrimage and pilgrimage pastoral care for years, can only carry out their tasks to a limited extent.
"They were an enormous support," Abbot Ludwig Ziegerer told the kath.ch portal on Tuesday.
Precisely because they no longer had fixed obligations, they were able to react flexibly to the concerns of the faithful.
Bottlenecks in pastoral care
Mariastein is one of the most famous pilgrimage sites in Switzerland. Many visitors spontaneously report to the monastery gate and ask for a conversation or a blessing.
"It is important to me that people who come to us can also meet someone," emphasizes the abbot. But in the meantime, the monastery had to reject individual requests. "I don't want to have to send anyone away who wants a blessing or a pastoral conversation."
In order not to make this situation the new normal, the monastery has now published a job advertisement. We are looking for priests who wish to live in the monastery for one to three months, seek time out and are ready to take on minor liturgical and pastoral services.
The advertisement states: "In addition to a lot of time for study, prayer and meditation, walks, sports, etc., we are grateful for the support of liturgical and pastoral services at the place of pilgrimage (e.g. Mass celebrations, blessings, pastoral and confessional conversations or other small services)."
Offer of the monastery
The guest priests live with the community of Benedictines and receive food and lodging.
The on-call service is on three to four days a week, with an average of two to three missions per day – significantly more on weekends and festive days.
"But the stakes are not so strict. It should be above all a recovery time for the guest priests," says Ziegerer.
The model is not only theory: Already in the summer, two priests were temporarily in use in Mariastein. The balance sheet is positive. "We've had good experiences."
Interested parties can contact the monastery’s website or Prior Armin Russi directly.