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:

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.

I live in the arch of Boston and we wouldn't have a priest shortage (not sure if we really do anyway since only 25% of Catholics attend Mass once a week - another "variable" when calculating these numbers) if we could corral all the priests with "jobs" and who "travel" and put them in parishes.

Are you from New England? I notice you are a Sox fan. Break your heart, every dang time.

You are something else. It is "our" community. We live together in a small community in s. Ohio.

And you very conveniently skip over the sentences that use 3rd person plural pronouns....they, their.

It says "In our community THEY are consolidating...THEY no longer have THEIR community church and THEY have to drive to be ministered to by..."

At best, what you've written is ignorant of pronouns and their meaning. At worst, it's an intentional misrepresentation. I pray your error is that of being ignorant.

In my opinion,it is not the worst only because they have a very orthodox element of Catholicism striving mightily to keep the church Catholic,this tempers the damage that the imperious Pilarchyk can wreak. Additionally,Dayton is somewhat removed from the goings on of the bish and his chancery minions in Cincinnati.

I read an article in the Cincy Enquirer recently about Pilaczyk's support of finding and penalizing those who had abused kids. He sounded very sincere and was cooperating with local authorities.

I don't know too much else about the man when it comes to doctrine and worship (other than that he presides over the VERY BEST HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL LEAGUE IN AMERICA)

Dear ArrogantBustard,

This is the sort of thing that makes me hopeful.

Cardinal Mahoney can't ordain 5 folks a year for 4 million Catholics. His brand of Catholic priest is clearly dying. Mt. St. Mary's has a deserved reputation for turning out good, holy, orthodox Catholic priests. And they don't have room for all the applicants, and thus are expanding. Their brand of Catholic priest is multiplying.

Bad priests on the decline. Good priests on the increase.

What's not to like?? ;-)

sitetest

There exists no mandate, as a command or order to move the tabernacle from the high altar to another position in the church. Inter Oecumenici (1964) which implements Sacrosanctum Concilium, states quite clearly that the Blessed Sacrament be reserved on the high altar...also by Eucharisticum Mysterium (1967), para 54..a great number of churches have been rearranged since the Second Vatican Council: such changes CANNOT however be said to have been required by the legislation of the Church." JOSEPH CARDINAL RATZINGER, on the question of SANCTUARY RENOVATIONS, published in October 1998 by Bernard Caesar. In addition, the architectural plans for the renovation of Sacred Heart Cathedral have been judged by the Vatican as CONTRARY to liturgical law and canon law by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. The spin from Rochester diocesan representatives that they are following Vatican II guidelines "are regrettable instances of statements.., which are inaccurate in asserting that several of the changes have been required by the liturgical law."

It's horrible. Waste of money, destruction of church architecture, horrible, horrible...all in...."the spirit of Vatican II"...my, my.... The bishop should be removed and jailed for vandalism and frivolous misuse of church funds.

The Pharisees,living at the time of Jesus Christ also sounded sincere. I believe he is fighting tooth and nail to keep these abuse cases from seeing the light of day.

If you are interested in the character of the leaders in the Amchurch,listen to every word this archbishop says that you know is righteous and Christlike and just,and then wait for the actions to reflect those words.

If you want to know the agenda of the Amchurch listen to what the archbishop says. It will be laced with "alas,alas we have no priests","people need to get used to priestless parishes","Rome doesn't understand us over here","we need young men who are 'flexible' in the priesthood",and so on and so forth.

If the threat to the Church,Christianity and Western Civilization was not so great,one could enjoy the relative transparency of their little games and their talent as actors;however,the threat is great and the time is short.

The bishop should be removed and jailed for vandalism and frivolous misuse of church funds.

To add insult to injury, Sacred Heart Cathedral is of great historical significance, since it was the home to Archbishop Fulton Sheen, where he reigned as Bishop of Rochester, New York, from 1966 until 1969. Sheen is considered by many to be the most influential Catholic leader in America during the 20th century. In 1999, Cardinal John O'Connor opened an investigation to consider Archbishop Sheen as a candidate for sainthood. Sacred Heart was the only cathedral that Sheen was ever assigned to as Bishop.

Sacred Heart Preservation Committee

If you revist the link I posted in my previous post, you will discover that Clark has already ripped out the pews and sold them at auction for $10-20 each! I truly commend the person who set up the Domus Dei web site and have tracked each and every action taken to prevent the destruction of this beautiful cathedral. Sadly, despite submitting a petition with 10,000 signatures to the Vatican and asking the City of Rochester to declare the cathedral a landmark, the wreckovation continues, under the guidane of ... who else .... Fr. Dr. Vosko!

The bishops must address the scandal of wreckovation. They need to break up these contractor mafiosi making decisions about church design. The people making money off the Church for bad wacky wreckovation need to be removed and should NEVER be give another church contract. If they are caught doing it once, they should never again be rewarded with a church building or renovation contract.

Besides the moral issues involved (HMBA as you say a waste of funds which could be used for SOCIAL issues that the progs love unless they need the money for something "more important") when "they" do this kind of thing they must have no idea of the scandal they cause to the faithful and I would stake my life that issues like this are part of the reason why a good portion of the 70% of Catholics who don't attend Mass weekly no longer have anything to do with the Church.

Same with McPhoney's Cathedral... millions and millions of dollars spent when there are hungry and sick people on the streets of LA, and then he's quick to cry poormouth and cut services (although part of the chancery staff was cut but you know the cuts weren't directed at his friends). Oh, and I just remembered that he hired a very, very expensive PR firm.

I can't even begin to think about Bishop Sheen's relationship to Sacred Heart Cathedral or I will really wreck my night off from work. Seems like Bishop Clark is trying to obliterate traces of Bishop Sheen.

The bishops must address the scandal of wreckovation. They need to break up these contractor mafiosi making decisions about church design.

I'm sure they'll get right on it. Right after they address the "priest crisis" and why orthodox dioceses have more priests and seminarians, the "homosexual crisis", knock off the ICEL terrorists, disband all the USCCB's "ad hoc" committees, hire Ignatius Press for catechismal material, and so on and so on.

These people have no business being in positions of decision-making authority in the Roman Catholic Church. They represent an extremist fringe faction - those hell-bent on radical chic neo-modernist "minimalist" architecture, a tacky modern fad promoted by Marxists and left-wing wacko types. Entire books have been written about this, lampooning the absurdities. This is a well-known howler in art and architecture circles. It's absurd in the extreme. It would be like if they ordered the members of the choir to wear pink polyesther pantsuits to Mass. That's about what you are dealing with in many of levels of AmChurch today. It's absurd in the extreme, so far in fact it seems incredibly silly we even have to debate this.

It's a fad in modern AMERICAN bad taste.

I pray your error is that of being ignorant.

Ignorant, of that I am sure. Guilty of that every time.

Take it easy! This is really not a big issue unless you want it to be. From your first post on this thread and your knowledge of this strictly Catholic issue and your use of "our community" (and this is a topic dealing strictly with Catholic priests and seminaries) you sounded like you were a Catholic.

No offense was intended on my part.

Sheen is considered by many to be the most influential Catholic leader in America during the 20th century.

Sheen was a magnificent preacher and was likely responsible for more conversions than any other Catholic bishop in the history of this country.

However, Sheen didn't want to be bishop of Rochester and was likely forced into the job by some jealous Vatican bureaucrat, who couldn't stand the fact that Sheen was a television personality.

Expectations were too high, and Sheen proved to be an inept administrator, since he largely ignored the administrative side of the job (he HATED it, in fact).

He requested, directly from Paul VI, that he be allowed to spend the rest of his episcopal career in service to preaching, which was the vocation God had blessed Him with in the first place.

Paul VI granted his wish, and made him an archbishop.

Sheen had no business being made a diocesan administrator. There's no shame in that; a very large number of the present occupants of episcopal sees don't belong there either!

I'm sure they'll get right on it.

Hey Colleen .... good to have you around on your night off :-)

Do I detect a bit of sarcasm in that statement .... lol?? If it is of ANY consolation to you both, here in Albany, the Vatican directives to "retain" kneelers has resulted in yet another campaign by the diocese to have kneelers 'installed' in those churches that were 'wreckovated' by, none other than our dearly beloved Fr. Dr. Vosko. Apparently, even the liberals know when they have been overruled.

There is a priest shortage except for a few areas where there isn't.
19 posted on 10/29/2003 11:52 AM PST by xzins

The good news in this is obviously that the conservative "true" Catholic dioceses are ordaining far more priests, percentage wise, to the liberal dioceses, but do you know what the actual number of priests ordained from these dioceses are?
20 posted on 10/29/2003 12:03 PM PST by xJones

There is a priest shortage, despite the statistics in this feel-good article.

The only thing this article might assert is that, in some places, things might be better in 2001 than they were in 1991.

But 1991 is already about 25 years into the vocations crisis. To make a truly convincing case, I would like to see Fr. Kowalski compare his 2001 stats to 1961 or 1951 stats. And not just percentages, but the hard numbers, too.

And include some more figures, such as: number of ordinations vs. number of priests retiring or passing away, mean age of priests, median age of priests, ratio of priest to congregation, etc.

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