text: No, I know the difference between causation and correlation.  My hypothesis is that ecclesiastical patriarchy is one of the factors (perhaps the driving factor) *causing* the crisis of vocations.  As the patriarchal phase of salvation history passes away, who wants to marry a patriarchal church?  Who wants to marry a phallogocentric church?  Who wants to marry a church that is resisting the signs of the times?  Since 1976, in response to the Anglican ordinations, what we have gotten from the Vatican is mostly smoke and mirrors:
  
  http://pelicanweb.org/CCC.TOB.html#CHRONOLOGY
  
  My hypothesis could be wrong.  Do you have an alternative hypothesis?