So, is there a priest shortage?

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[american colleen]

So, is there a priest shortage?

It is fairly common for the press, Catholic or secular, to report about a shortage of Catholic priests that is usually described as a crisis for the Church. It is true that the number of priests in the US has been declining for over a decade. This has been a fairly small decline however, from 53,000 in 1991 to 46,000 in 2001. There has probably been a similar decline in the percentage of active Catholics during these same years, but this is harder to measure accurately. Keep in mind that there are less than 20,000 Catholic parishes in the US, far less than the number of priests. And just for example, if half of the parishes closed overnight, most Catholics would still have a shorter trip to Sunday mass than to their nearest shopping mall. (Thanks to a local bishop for that fact.) I live in an area where towns of less than two hundred people still have a priest serving their parish.

These statistics need to be interpreted in light of an important fact: The Catholic Church is an international, worldwide institution. Priests can and often do travel between nations to meet local needs. Some people think it a problem that the US has imported a few hundred foreign-born priests because our seminaries can't produce enough. Do these people realize that the US has imported half a million computer programmers because our schools can't produce enough?

You won't see much reporting about this, but worldwide the number of priests and seminarians is growing. Between 1990 and 2000, total priests worldwide increased from 401,000 to 405,000. Granted, this is slower than the percent growth in total Catholics, but remember that several other religions are shrinking in the modern, secularized world. In other words, "They wish they had our problems"! Add to this the number of permanent deacons, which exploded from 17,000 to 27,000 during these years. Permanent deacons are ordained clergy who perform baptisms, weddings and preach. They will play a growing role in the future of the Church, but they get very little publicity. The overall result is that the number of Catholic clergy has increased significantly in the last decade. And during those 10 years the number of worldwide Catholic major seminarians grew from 93,000 to 110,000, a very healthy increase. The lack of growth is mostly in the English-speaking nations. And even there the problem is more local than you might think.

Some US Dioceses are ordaining many more priests than others. By comparing the number of priests active in a diocese during 2001 with the same figure from 1991, we can see how the diocese is trending vocationally. The percentage figure represents the 2001 number divided by the 1991 figure. A higher percentage means the diocese is having more success attracting new priests. Compare these relatively successful dioceses:

Atlanta, GA. . . . 123%

Arlington, VA. . 121

Lincoln, NE. . . . 107

Fargo, ND. . . . 101

Rockford, IL. . . . 97

With these relatively unsuccessful ones:

Rochester, NY. . . 72%

Milwaukee, WI. . . 77

Albany, NY. . . . . . 79

New Ulm, MN. . . 79

Joliet, IL. . . . . . . . 80

I hate to use a cliche, but numbers don't lie. Anyone can see a huge difference here. Ultimately, the bishop of a diocese is responsible for vocations. I will leave it to you, gentle reader, to explore what many other Catholics have said about the men who were leading the Dioceses above during those years. I will say that if we had accountability in the Church like major business corporations do, Bishop Matthew Clark of Rochester would have been forced to resign long ago.

Standard business management practice would suggest that we study the Dioceses that are succeeding, see what factors are helping them, and implement these factors in other places. Bishops that fail to do this should be held accountable in some way. This is an area where some new kind of lay empowerment may be needed. If any readers are curious about the percentage figure for your local diocese, contact me and I will calculate it for you. For now, this may be the best "power rating" available to evaluate the performance of Catholic Bishops.

[neocon]

Communion in the hand was a common practice as can be see in reading the Early Church Fathers ...

My personal preference is to receive Holy Communion on the tongue, while kneeling, because I do think that development of practice expresses greater reverence. But for reference, I thought I would supply the testimony of St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechetical Lectures 23:20-22; c. AD 350):

After this, [i.e., after the priest has said "Holy things for holy people"] you hear the cantor inviting you with sacred melody to participate in the holy mysteries, in these words: "Taste and see that the Lord is good" [Ps 34:8]. Do not trust your palate to form the judgment; trust unhesitating faith. For those who taste are not bidden to taste bread and wine, but the body and blood of Christ thus symbolized.

When you approach, therefore, do not come forward with wrists outstreched, or with fingers spread open. Make your left hand, as it were, a throne for your right, since it is about to receive a king; and hollow your palm, and receive the body of Christ, adding your "Amen". Then, after you have carefully hallowed your eyes by the touch of the holy body, partake of it. Take care to lose none of it ...

After partaking of the body of Christ, approach the cup of his blood also. Do not stretch up your hands, but bow down and say, in manner of worship and reverence, "Amen"; and be sanctified by partaking also of Christ's blood. And while the moisture is still on your lips, touch them with your hands, and sanctify your eyes and forehead and the rest of your organs of sense. Then wait for the prayer, and give thanks to God who has counted you worthy of admission to those great mysteries.

So the practice of Communion in the hand, or under both species, can hardly be the "desacralizing abomination" the RadTrads would have it be.

Thanks for the ping, colleen. The statistics you've supplied show that heterodoxy amounts to a self-correcting condition. It's a painful process, and takes a few decades, but eventually people who espouse such views leave for greener pastures (or to start their own demonination), or die off, having ultimately failed to convince many people that there's any point to being a cafeteria Catholic. (I spent my university days in the diocese of Rochester, NY, under Bp. Clark and his predecessor, so have some idea what's going on there and why the numbers are dropping precipitously.)

In my experience, young people today are looking for authenticity, having been raised in a culture which has little. With the idealism of youth, they're looking to dedicate their lives to something that rises above the ersatz. So they naturally find Catholic orthodoxy attractive. And they're being well served by new colleges, like Thomas Aquinas in California, Christendom in Virginia, Magdalen in New Hampshire, etc., as well as newly constituted seminaries and religious houses. As we say in mathematics, the first derivative is positive.

[saradippity]

I should have said "you all find yourself",I was not directing it to you specifically.

Do read St. Chuck's post #101,which lays out the entire Old Testament story of Solomon,the contesting mothers and the baby.

Is that organization you cited based out of the same Georgetown University where professors and students walked out on Cardinal Arinze's rather orthodox,conservative commencement address?

Please know I know there is a problem with a decreased number of priests,but when people who claim they love the Church just reiterate the same old laments it does nothing to help resolve the problem and in fact,eases the way for a "liberal" solution.The only way to get the Tridentine Mass celebrated more often and in more places is to get the Church back in order first.All the Tridentine Masses in the world will do nothing if they are offerred by homosexual priests,divorced,married and women priests with no allegiance to the Holy Father and Magisterium.

My hope is that we can work together to bring back the Church Christ established to bring us home to the Father.

[Dajjal]

... when people who claim they love the Church just reiterate the same old laments it does nothing to help resolve the problem and in fact,eases the way for a "liberal" solution.

And I believe that when people deny that there is a crisis in the Church -- as I interpret Fr. Kowalski as doing -- that they encourage complacency and acceptance of the status quo -- the bad as well as the good in current situation.

Do read St. Chuck's post #101,which lays out the entire Old Testament story of Solomon,the contesting mothers and the baby.

Yes I did. I was not impressed. So now those who wish to preserve the Traditions of the Church are like harlots who want to have babies killed? What a charitable commentary on the verses.

Is that organization you cited based out of the same Georgetown University where professors and students walked out on Cardinal Arinze's rather orthodox, conservative commencement address?

And thus everyone at Georgetown now has a heart as black as coal because of this? I have no idea if anyone who assisted in the 1995 CARA study which bean-counted the numbers of priests and seminarians in the US over several decades were among the 70 Georgetown profs who protested Cardinal Arinze in May, 2003. Nor do I care enough to try to find out. I would rather judge the hard numbers on their own merit, rather than on the moral rectitude of the person who did the arithmetic adding them up.

The only way to get the Tridentine Mass celebrated more often and in more places is to get the Church back in order first. All the Tridentine Masses in the world will do nothing if they are offered by homosexual priests, divorced, married and women priests with no allegiance to the Holy Father and Magisterium.

I do not see how this has anything at all to do with my questioning Fr. Kowalski's use of 1991-2001 statistics as too short a time frame when he declares that the decline in the number of US priests is “fairly small.”

I will add that I’m unimpressed when Fr. Kowalski chalks up the differences between Atlanta, Arlington, &c. vs. Rochester, Milwaukee, &c. not to the differences between orthodoxy vs. heterodoxy, but to differences in styles of business management by the respective bishops.

[Dajjal]

If you're interested, a ping to #143.

[sinkspur]

The only way to get the Tridentine Mass celebrated more often and in more places is to get the Church back in order first.

Sara, there are very few people in the Church at large who are wringing their hands over getting the Tridentine Mass celebrated in more places.

The focus is on the Novus Ordo Mass, cleaning up translations and encouraging its celebration according to the published GIRM.

FR and the Remnant are not representative of the Church. And most bishops, even conservatives like Bruskewitz, are not encouraging the Tridentine Mass; they merely allow it.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Traditionally, there were none in non-white neighborhoods, but they are expanding now into them in a serious way. There was an article on them in the Enquirer over the summer, and my memory is somewhat vague, but they clearly have turned a leaf and gone for areas they traditionally eshewed.

Lets be clearer. Philadelphia has white neighborhoods, one hispanic neighborhood, and black neighborhoods. The white and hispanic areas are 40-90% Catholic (mostly depending on how many Jews are in the area, Protestants are a very minor force among whites around here). The black nieghborhoods are 1-5% Catholic. If Southern Baptists are moving into the black neighborhoods, it has zilch to do with Catholicism.

Yes, but at least they don't have the problems with priests the RCC has been having of late. Granted, that's only in a small number of parishes, but that's not the impression many get from the media.

Well, the Southern Baptists I deal with in my family in North Carolina have a different set of problems with Pastors addicted to serial adultery and seduction.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

That can't be! There's a crisis out there for cryin' out loud!

(liberal squawkbox)Crisis! Priest shortage! Ordain women now! Drop celibacy!(/liberal squawkbox)

;-)

[ninenot]

Even if Loverde authorizes the use of girls, that does NOT legally bind his priests to use them (as was made clear by Rome following an inquiry by a certain Midwestern Bishop located in Nebraska...)

[saradippity]

When a serendipity becomes a burden,it's time to move along. Talk to you later.

[saradippity]

Well,yeah,that's kind of the thinking that resulted in the comment at issue.

The only difference is that I am of the opinion that when the liturgy gets fixed,the catechesis consists of more Catholic teaching and Truth,when Catholics use and know the New Catechism,when the wreckovations stop,and when authority figures,found in the religious and lay alike stop lying to the faithful,there will be a recognition of the goodness,truth and beauty of the Tridentine Mass and it will be offered to the faithful generously.

[Held_to_Ransom]

If Southern Baptists are moving into the black neighborhoods, it has zilch to do with Catholicism.

I didn't realize they were still that racist. Just the same, Catholic schools remain the school of choice for many Philadelphians, and there are more non-Catholics than catholics in them.

Yes, but at least they don't have the problems with priests the RCC has been having of late. Granted, that's only in a small number of parishes, but that's not the impression many get from the media.

Well, the Southern Baptists I deal with in my family in North Carolina have a different set of problems with Pastors addicted to serial adultery and seduction

What can I say. North Carolina? At least it's hetero sex with consenting adults.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

I didn't realize they were still that racist.

I don't see the relevance of your impugning my diocese?

Its just the way things are around here - most whites in the city are Catholic, the vast majority of blacks are not. If new Protestant Churches move into the black neighborhoods, it has nothing to do with things going on in my own Church. Its just Protestants or unbelievers moving to a different denomination.

Just the same, Catholic schools remain the school of choice for many Philadelphians, and there are more non-Catholics than catholics in them.

Not at all true. You can look at the statistics on the web if it interests you.

http://www.archdiocese-phl.org/pastplan/avdata.htm

Click on clusters on reports by geography, and then click on the 2002 cluster report for any given cluster. It will give you the school attendance and the number of non-Catholics attending. Even in the black areas of town, the majority of children in the Catholics schools are Catholic. In the white areas, its around 90% Catholic.

[ELS]

Thank you for the link to the list of adoration chapels!

[JNB]

I am a little late from this thread, but St Chuck, trust me on this, the left have far more power in the church today in the US and have done far more damage to the faith of millions that traditionalists ever had. I am frankly shocked that you have anything good to say about the Catholic left, I know the Catholic left is one reason why I am so alone in my faith, since my immediate family and friends are no longer in the pews anymore. Anyways St Chuck, as others have pointed out, Hetrodoxy is self correcting over a few deacdes, and the left will fade away since the few children they have are quite secularised.

[JNB]

Could be wrong?.......................

[St.Chuck]

I am frankly shocked that you have anything good to say about the Catholic left

Love thine enemies.

Hetrodoxy is self correcting over a few deacdes

The triumphalism I drag around like a ball and chain forces me to share that view.

I am wrong to dismiss other's opinions about the motives of the left. I don't pay close attention to it because I believe authentic Catholicism is there to be found for those who search for it. I believe that one can know, love, and serve the Lord without tripping over the obstacles that people, for whatever reason or motive, place in the way.

[St.Chuck]

Meant to ping you too to the previous post