Do this in memory of me. Through much of my lifetime priests have been heavy on the ground, the Mass, the other sacraments, to be had for the asking. Almost any time of the day, somewhere, a priest was on tap to provide the pardon and peace that comes from confessing one's sins and receiving absolution. In large cities, it is still an easy matter, and also on college campuses where the proportion of priests to laity far exceeds the average. But we seem threatened by a return to an almost missionary situation.
Ordinations are down in most dioceses.
When I was a boy, there were two assistants in most parishes to help the pastor. Three Masses every day, six on Sunday, and of course the next parish was only blocks away. If during the golden period prior to Vatican II one imagined a change it would have been along the lines of Graham Greene's The Labyrinthian Ways. Mexico, a Catholic country, is taken over by ideologues inimical to the Church and persecution begins. The priest becomes a hunted animal but the people want what he alone can give and he must jeopardize himself for them.