Commercial Credited for Increase in Seminarians
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
PITTSBURGH —
The Roman Catholic Diocese is crediting a TV commercial for helping draw more men to the seminary. The diocese, which ordained no priests in 1999, now has eight seminarians, its largest class in seven years.
The ad features the Rev. David Bonnar describing a priest as “an ordinary man called to do extraordinary work.”
It first ran two years ago and has been picked up the archdioceses of Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Baltimore had nine new candidates for the priesthood last year, the largest class in a decade.
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