Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice

EWTN News portal reports on World Vocations Day about Lobdine Chisim, a 65-year-old lay teacher and catechist from Mariamnagar Parish in Bangladesh’s Diocese of Mymensingh, who received the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice papal honor in 2025 for her decades of supporting priestly and religious vocations. The article describes how she financed her brother’s seminary education, accompanied young people through discernment, provided financial assistance to impoverished candidates, and was called a “caregiver of vocations” by local clergy. She is credited with playing a role in nearly all of the at least eight priests and seven religious sisters produced by her parish. While the article presents an edifying example of lay generosity, it is entirely silent on the catastrophic destruction of authentic formation by the post-conciliar revolution — the very revolution that has made such individual acts of charity a desperate substitute for what the Church’s own institutional structures were divinely ordained to provide.