The day after Pentecost, there are increasing signs that the Spirit is at work.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

Catholic Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh received an honorary doctorate from St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe over the weekend, capping a week in which his prayers for more vocations to the priesthood show signs of being answered.

More than 80 men and boys from the Diocese of Pittsburgh attended an inquiry meeting Thursday for those who think they might be interested in priesthood. It was followed by a standing-room-only hour of prayer for vocations.

“The spirit is moving,” Bishop Zubik said.

The inquirers, who attended a cookout at St. Paul Seminary in East Carnegie, got a tour and a talk from the bishop on what priesthood is about. They ranged in age from older grade school students to professionals, the oldest of whom was 51. Then they joined nearly 600 other people from across the diocese to pray for more priests, with people standing five rows deep in the back and spilling out of the auditorium door to fill the lobby.

“I have never seen the seminary auditorium so packed,” said Bishop Zubik, who gave up the traditional bishop’s mansion in Squirrel Hill when he became bishop of Pittsburgh last year to live at St. Paul with the seminarians.

New seminarians live there for at least two years to receive spiritual formation and take college-level classes in philosophy and theology at Duquesne University. Then they go on for at least four more years of graduate and continued formation at one of several seminaries the diocese uses, including St. Vincent.

Only after receiving a master of divinity degree, as nine men did at St. Vincent Friday night, is a man eligible to be ordained for a diocese or a religious order.

There were no Pittsburghers among the St. Vincent graduates this year, although Bishop Zubik expects to ordain three men from other seminaries next month.

The diocese currently has 27 seminarians. Four of them attend St. Vincent, which currently has students from 13 dioceses, 12 Benedictine monasteries and several other religious orders.

And, closer to home, there’s this item from a suburban New York paper:

The grounds of St. Joseph’s Seminary – covered by more than 25,000 faith-fueled teens only three weeks ago for the papal youth rally – are now quiet, bare and still.

The fields behind the seminary, where young Catholics waited on impossibly long lines for sodas and rosary beads, are barren. Grass and dirt.

Even seminarians, whose numbers are way down in recent years, are getting some time off before dispersing for their summer parish assignments.

One of the few people who is still experiencing the papal visit, in a sense, is the Rev. Luke Sweeney, director of vocations for the Archdiocese of New York.

Normally, he receives a couple of inquires each week from young men considering the priesthood. But during the last three weeks, he has received dozens. Some of them are quite serious and come from men who say that Pope Benedict XVI’s visit has inspired them to consider taking a step they have avoided.

One 20-year-old college senior wrote to Sweeney:

“I have prayed and continue praying that God will let me not be afraid to do his will and that I will accept any vocation he has in mind for me. I have to say having the chance to see the Holy Father in person on his visit to the U.S. was out of this world and his words had a great impact on me.”

Another wrote that after watching the pope in New York, “I can’t help but be brought to tears of joy with the simple thought of becoming a priest.”

This was the hope. The Archdiocese of New York is facing a worsening shortage of priests and is in great need of seminarians. The archdiocese has only about 470 active diocesan priests — compared to 1,200 four decades ago — and about 40 percent are between 65 and 75.

Cardinal Edward Egan was to ordain six new diocesan priests yesterday at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The main or upper seminary at St. Joseph’s will be training a total of fewer than 20 men next fall.

“It’s always been my gut feeling and belief that there are guys out there thinking about it,” said Sweeney, who talks about the priesthood at high schools, colleges and parishes. “The idea has been kicking around for a while, maybe years, but for whatever reason – work, fear, simply pushing it out of their minds – they can’t take the step. My hope was the Holy Father’s visit would knock some people off the fence and give us the shot in the arm we need.

“It seems to be happening,” he said.

Sweeney is excited, but cautiously so. Of the men who have contacted him, some will get cold feet right away. Others will need to finish college or to take a few years to consider their vocation or get up their courage. Others will prove to be a poor fit for the priesthood.

“We want to avoid flash-in-the-pan conversions,” Sweeney said. “We really monitor applications. But I want to talk to them as soon as possible to get a sense of their vocation, of whether they are a promising candidate.”

Sweeney believes that at least several young men may be ready to enter St. Joseph’s minor seminary this fall, where students study philosophy and other subjects before entering the main seminary to study theology.

The true impact of the papal visit, though, won’t be known for more than a decade, Sweeney said. The hope is that men who enter the seminary years from now will look back on the papal visit as a formative experience – and a counter to the sex-abuse crisis that has certainly weighed on the minds of young Catholic men in recent years.

“I’m hopeful that in the coming years, young men will say, ‘That’s the first time I thought about the priesthood, when the pope was in New York,’ ” Sweeney said.

The early signs are good. Sweeney’s new Web site – www.nypriest.com – got 8,000 hits during and immediately after the pope’s visit.

Sweeney is also talking to Egan about launching an advertising campaign with the slogan: “The world needs heroes.”

In the meantime, he keeps getting e-mails like this one:

“After spending the day at the rally, seeing the Holy Father and even just as importantly seeing so many young men in seminary, all my fears and concerns about entering seminary have escaped me and I cannot shake the feeling of joy over the idea of becoming a priest.”