FR Neil Muir believes that a new generation of priests must be found in Queensland’s parishes and church communities, otherwise the Church will continue to struggle.
“We’re quite happy to have priests, particularly if they come from another place, but we’re not calling or encouraging young men from within our ranks,” Fr Muir said.
The Cairns priest has been named as the new rector of Holy Spirit Seminary in Brisbane, and will succeed Monsignor John Grace in the role at the end of this year.
Fr Muir, in Cairns diocese, is episcopal vicar of finance and administration, education and Centacare FNQ, and will start preparing for his new role from July 1.
He said rekindling a culture of vocations must be a Church priority – whether it is supporting a call to marriage, religious life, single life or the priesthood.
“I think we’ve lost two generations of growing up in the Catholic culture, precisely because there are other things. We live in a highly consumeristic society,” Fr Muir said.
“(A vocation) needs to be, above all, nurtured, when you go to the Sunday Mass – in the Word, and the Eucharist, and because you’ve got a community gathering around you.
“That’s the beginning where a vocation is nurtured.”
The last ordination in the Cairns diocese was in 2015, and before that it was Fr Muir’s own ordination in 1994.
“Now we’ve got wonderful priests that have come to us from overseas – India – and we have two wonderful priests who have joined the diocese, who originally were in Poland,” he said.
“I’m just wondering how we encourage our locals to take up that call.”
In his own case, Fr Muir said it took the encouragement of local priests to get him started on the journey.
He grew up in St Joseph’s parish, Atherton, went to school at St Joseph’s School and then Atherton High School.
“The priests in that parish were impressive men,” Fr Muir said.
“When my father died, I was impressed by not just the priests but the care of the Catholic community. The liturgy also always had an effect on me.”
After school, Fr Muir joined a bank and studied accountancy, but he “kept having this niggling question – an attraction to the priesthood”.
“I thought for a long time about priesthood but never had the courage to actually go and see my parish priest,” he said.
“One night, I just happened to mention to him that I’d thought about the priesthood.
“Well, the next minute I was being interviewed by John Bathersby who was the Bishop of Cairns, and asked to go to the seminary and the following year three of us went to the seminary.
“My mother was a bit shocked and encouraged me to think about it again because she wasn’t going to have grandchildren.
“But she supported me throughout my seminary life.”
There were times Fr Muir doubted he could make it through the arduous years of study at the Pius XII Provincial Seminary, Banyo (known today as Holy Spirit Seminary).
“I remember sitting with one of the other guys from Cairns on the back steps of one of the buildings in the seminary and saying I don’t think I’m going to be here in six months’ time,” he said.
“I just thought there were others better at this than me.
“As I went through the seminary, the first year was great and the second year I struggled. I was distracted, I was lazy.
“The late Bishop (Michael) Putney was vice rector there and he had a good talk with me one day … and I underwent a bit of a conversion.
“He was very convincing, let’s put it that way.
“And then from my third year onwards I embraced it.
“I think, from my own perspective, it’s like anything – you surrender to it and allow the Spirit of God to work.”
Fr Muir hopes to bring all of his rich formative experiences to his new role as rector.
“My vocation wasn’t a call to the seminary. It was a call to what the seminary was preparing me for – priesthood,” he said.
Fr Muir returns to a discussion of the many “pressures” and “distractions” today that make it difficult for a young man to discern a priestly vocation.
“I think there’s an expectation for them to do certain things in life. And the Church isn’t one of them,” he said.
“It’s a disposable world. The priesthood is, in a lot of ways, countercultural.
“And the Church itself is countercultural.
“We’ve got the euthanasia debate coming up again in Queensland, and we’ve had the abortion debate.
“The Church must continually take a stance for what it believes and not always bow to culture.
“I’m not saying all cultural things are bad, but the Church has particular beliefs and so I see those things distract or take people away.”
Fr Muir said the reality of a pandemic – the isolation and the restrictions – helped many people to consider some of the deeper issues of life.
“I think so. I think (that is) to take stock of the meaning of life, and to enjoy the deeper gifts that were given in life,” he said.
“And when you think about that, that’s the sacramental life of the Church – to go below the surface, to go into the deep.
“And (it is), to quote St Paul on that: ‘be ambitious for the higher things in life or the richer things’.”
To prepare for his role as rector, Fr Muir plans to visit each Queensland diocese and meet with priests.
He’ll also visit seminaries across Australia, and perhaps in New Zealand, if travel is permitted.
