» Comical call to the priesthood

The Age reports that, the Roman Catholic Church is launching a comic strip this week to attract teenagers into the priesthood.

It is using the art form in an advertising campaign to combat the dramatic decline in applicants for ordination. The church hopes its comic, with pictures of nuns and monks playing pool and surfing the internet, will improve the image of the vocation, which leaders believe is seen as “monotonous and boring”.

The minimum age to enter a seminary is 18, but children as young as 10 are the target of the recruitment drive. About 5000 primary and secondary schools in Britain have been sent posters promoting a website that features a comic strip based on five young Catholic characters.

Father Paul Embery, the church’s director of vocations, admitted that convincing teenagers to commit to a life of poverty, chastity and obedience is not an easy sell.

In the typical Catholic diocese there are four times as many priests aged over 70 as there are under 30, who make up only 7 per cent. The average age of clerics has risen from 57 in 1996 to 61.5 today.

This latest recruitment strategy follows a previous attempt to recruit priests by placing ads on beermats in pubs.