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  Abuse Scandal Doesn't Deter Seminarians

Catholic News Service
U.S.
Downloaded January 22, 2003

PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) -- For Christmas, 25-year-old Jeff Meeuwsen asked for a copy of the New Testament in Greek. "I'll carry it around, I think. People will figure I'm pretty smart," said Meeuwsen, a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Portland. The former Catholic school teacher is in his second year at Mount Angel Seminary in St. Benedict. There, he has become keen on Scripture study. Having a Greek Bible would hardly have entered his consciousness just three years ago. "I'm learning much more than I ever thought I'd learn in one semester," said the native of Roy, a small town near the foothills of the Oregon Coast Range. "There is so much." Meeuwsen and 19 others make up one of the larger groups of seminarians the archdiocese has fielded in recent decades. In Oregon and nationwide, vocations offices report no net drop in those preparing for priesthood. Most dioceses are holding steady or reporting slight increases, despite a year of story after story of clerical sex abuse in the Catholic Church.

 
 

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