Our parrish priest has been telling us for over 8 years that there was going to be church closings. It's not a money issue, it's a priest shortage.
2002 -9 priest ordained
2003 -5 priest ordained
2004 -7 priest ordained
The majority of priest are over 65 and will be retiring in the near future. Archbishop O'Mally did what he had to and that's to lead.
I am assuming those ordination numbers you posted are for your diocesan area. You sort of make it look like that's TOTAL ordinations for the country? World? There are many ordinations going on. I'm going to one for a good friend - seminarian in a few weeks. Having said that. You are correct; we have a serious priest shortage. We had a wonderful priest here that was accused of abuse 25 years ago. He was exhonorated, but it destroyed his ability to be a priest here so we lost him. Sad, sad, sad.
If they allowed priests to marry, two things would happen:
They would get more priests
These priests would flush out paedophiles