Today, I begin a three-part series on the question of the crisis in the Priesthood. Will the Holy Father and the Bishops finally stop ignoring that the shortage of Priests to provide for the Sacramental care of the People of God is already acute and becoming more critical each day?
Let us consider the matter a bit more closely.
After earning the STB (Bachelor in Sacred Theology) Degree from the Gregorianum in Rome in 1973, I had one year of additional study available before returning home to St. Louis for Ordination to the Sacred Priesthood.
The “Greg” offered an STL (Licentiate in Sacred Theology) Degree program. The only problem was that it was a two year cycle to earn the Degree. The Angelicum, however, did provide a Master Degree in Pastoral Theology which required one year of study and the writing of a Master's thesis. I chose to enter that program and was awarded the Degree in 1974, the year of my Ordination.
During my courses at the Angelicum, I remember very vividly that one of my Dominican Professors made the following statement that none of us could have possibly understood or fully appreciated at the time. I recorded his words verbatim in my class notes which I continue to keep as personal treasures after all these years: “Vatican Council I elucidated the Office and Mission of the Supreme Pontiff. Vatican Council II did the same for Bishops, as a College and individually. Vatican Council III will redefine the Sacred Priesthood as we have experienced it since the 12th Century. And, with the coming crisis in Priesthood, this present generation of Catholics will live to see the convening of Vatican III.”
Prophetical words, to be sure!
I have been a Priest for 42 years. In so many ways, the Priesthood of today is hardly recognizable from that into which I was ordained almost a half century ago. Most especially shocking is our rapidly dwindling numbers in ministry.
Here are some figures taken from the latest available research compiled by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) in 2012.
Worldwide, the number of priests in 1970 was 419,728. In 2012, there were a total of 414,313 Priests. While the total number of Priests worldwide has therefore remained about the same since 1970, the Catholic population has nearly doubled, growing from 653.6 million in 1970 to 1.229 billion in 2012.
In 2012, the global number of candidates for the Priesthood also showed its first critical decline in recent years.
In the United States, where approximately one quarter of the population is Catholic, in 2012 there was one Priest per 1,500 Catholics.
In the United States the "Catholic Church is unique among eleven of the largest Christian denominations in several areas: the decreasing supply of Priests, the increasing number of lay people Per priest, the declining number of Priests per parish, and the increasing number of so-called “Priestless” parishes.
The number of parishes with no resident Pastor has grown from 39,431 in 1970 to 49,153 in 2012, almost 10,000 fewer Priests today!
Worldwide, the total number of priests has declined from 58,534 in 1981 to 38,275 in 2012 (a 33 percent loss between 1981 and 2012).
With the Catholic population increasing steadily and the number of Priests declining, the number of laypeople per Priest has climbed from 875:1 in 1981 to 2,000:1 in 2012 (a 130 percent increase).
The declining number of Priests in parish ministry is producing a marked increase in the number of “Priestless” parishes. In 1960, only about 3 percent of Catholic parishes had no resident Pastor. By 2003 it had risen to 16 percent.
Globally, the number of parishes with no resident Pastor has grown from 39,431 in 1970 to 49,153 in 2012.
Between 1965 and 2012, the number of USA parishes without a Priest climbed from 549 to 3,496, an almost 700 per cent increase.
In Europe, the figures are no less disturbing.
Germany, which used to send Missionary Priests to other countries, now has a shortage of new clergy. As a result, some German congregations have merged, and the church has recruited Priests from elsewhere. Approximately 10 percent of Catholic priests in Germany, about 1,300, are immigrants from foreign countries, with many hailing from India.
In Ireland, the decade from 2002-2012 saw the number of Catholic diocesan Priests drop 13 per cent, similar to the decrease in the number of Priests in Religious Congregations. And many Priests remaining are elderly and approaching retirement.
“The crisis is now mathematically certain. If we keep going the way we are, the future of the Irish Priesthood is now unsustainable,” noted Fr. Brendan Hoban, head of the Association of Catholic Priests.
In Spain, Catholic Church sources confirmed that the country is experiencing a critical shortage of Priests. Rural Priests are in some cases responsible for up to a half dozen parishes at a time. In an almost absurd situation, one Priest in Cantabria is responsible for 22 parishes. A study sponsored by the Church showed that in 2007, at least 10,615 of the 23,286 parishes in Spain had no priest in permanent residence, almost 50 per cent of all Catholic parishes in the country!
In 2009, only 90 Priests were ordained in the entire country of France. The Church's hierarchy is rightfully alarmed and has managed the problem thus far with recruitment from abroad. There are over 1,300 foreign priests in France; over 650 come from Africa, typically from poor African countries such as Togo, Madagascar and Burkina Faso, where churches have enough priests or simply cannot pay for more.
The region where Catholicism is experiencing its fastest growth is in Africa, and the number of Priests is not keeping pace with that growth. The Catholic population there has grown by 238 percent since 1980 and is approaching 200 million, thus far exceeding the growth in the number of Priests, which while up 131 percent in the same period, still represents an almost 60 per cent decrease in the number needed to serve the growing Catholic population.
Latin America has a worrying shortage of ordained Priests required for celebrating the Sacraments, the lifeblood of Catholic Christianity.
During his visit to Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI noted that the shortage of Priests in Latin America is a problem that the church hierarchy there describes as particularly acute.
At a time when the Catholic church is losing membership to Pentecostal churches, Evangelical Protestant preachers outnumber Catholic Priests 2 to 1. In 1980, nine of every 10 Brazilians self-identified as Roman Catholics, but that percentage has steadily dropped. By 2007 only two-thirds of Brazilians remain Catholics as the country struggles with a shortage of Priests.
In 2014, Bishop Erwin Krautler, a bishop who leads a geographically expansive diocese in the Brazilian rain forest met with Pope Francis to discuss how much the Priest shortage affects the Church in the Southern Hemisphere. Krautler’s diocese only has 27 priests for 700,000 Catholics. As a result, many Catholics might only have Mass celebrated for them a couple of times a year. Totally unacceptable.
In Asia, the situation is worsening. Until recently India had sufficient Priests but is now experiencing difficulty in recruiting seminarians. "Until some years ago, brighter young men willing to join the Priesthood were plenty in India. But now, for various reasons, as their preference is changing, it threatens to pose many crises for the community in the future," said Father Udumala Bala, the Deputy Secretary General of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI).
In the Philippines, the ratio of Priests to Catholics is approximately 1 to 8,000. But Archbishop Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle says the ideal number should be one Priest per 2,000 Catholics. In Manila, the ratio is 1 Priest to 20,000 parishioners.
How are Bishops dealing with these alarming figures in their respective dioceses? More about that in tomorrow’s post.
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