Turning the ship around

When Bishop Zipfel was installed in the Bismarck Diocese, he quickly noticed that the average age of priests was high, not unlike many dioceses across the country. The large groups of priests ordained in the 1950s and ’60s were rapidly approaching the age of retirement.
 
“During Bishop Zipfel’s time, we turned the ship around in the diocese from dwindling numbers of priests to a strong number of priests and, even more importantly, the average age decreased dramatically,” said Msgr. Tom Richter.
 
In the Bismarck Diocese, many of the priests from the Bishop Hoch era were preparing to retire and the diocese needed priests to serve the people of Western North Dakota. In response, Bishop Zipfel invested resources to increase vocations.
 
One of those resources was to appoint a priest as full-time vocations director, a practice that was not widely adopted in many dioceses, even the larger archdioceses around the country. However, Bishop Zipfel found the man for the job in Msgr. Richter who had been ordained in 1996.
 
By 2002, he was the full-time vocations director for the diocese. When he began his assignment, Msgr. Richter said the number of men in formation for the priesthood for the diocese was below a dozen and the average age of active priests was quite high.
 
“It was of great concern for Bishop Zipfel that the diocese would have a sufficient number of healthy, holy priests to serve the people of God,” he said. “Vocations were a very high priority for him.”
 
And, so was raising the standards for seminary formation and the admission process. According to Msgr. Richter, Bishop Zipfel instituted a much more rigorous battery of psychological testing and screening and in-depth background checks for seminarians. He also required the men considering the priesthood to spend a summer at the Institute of Priestly Formation so they could develop a strong spiritual life and a strong prayer life as a foundation for the man to become a “healthy, affectively mature man, rooted in friendship with Christ with a strong prayer life.”
 
He sent Msgr. Richter around to preach about vocations at all the parishes around the diocese and helped him to develop an annual vocation day for fifth graders that was held for a few years. Data was showing that youth of about this age began to think about vocations to the priesthood and religious life. All the fifth graders from the diocesan Catholic schools gathered in Bismarck for workshops and learning sessions. Bishop Zipfel devoted several hours each year to speak to those in attendance about vocations.
 
Through the increase in prayer from lay faithful and an investment by Bishop Zipfel, the Bismarck Diocese became one of a handful of dioceses with an abundance of vocations. Monsignor Richter estimates that the number went from around 10 to as high as 23 under the direction and guidance of Bishop Zipfel.
 
The diocese continues to be blessed with a large number of vocations, thanks, in large part, to Bishop Zipfel’s visionary approach that is continued by today’s leadership.