In many Catholic areas, look to see the priest population “age out” in the next 10 years.
The Boomer generation will be buried and have their last rites said by a scant few Millennials and Gen Xers
So will a large % of the church members.
The stats in the headline seem incongruent with the stats in the article.
Assuming priests become priests at 20 and retire at 70 that’s 50 years. 15 years / 50 years is 30%. So 25% aging out over the next 15 years doesn’t sound that bad.
That only 2.5% of priests are under 40 sounds much worse. But at what age do Irish men normally become priests?
At ages 25 to 70 (45 years), baseline would be 33.3% in 15 years (15/45) so having 25% retire in 15 years is below baseline.
At ages 25 to 75 (50 years), baseline would be 30% in 15 years (15/50). Again 25% in 15 years is still below baseline.
At 3.33% per year retirement (15/45) = 69.3 of the 2,100 current priests. Losing 69.3 per year, they'd cycle out all of them by 2053 if they had no replacements:
2023 69
2024 139
2025 208
2026 277
2027 347
2028 416
2029 485
2030 554
2031 624
2032 693
2033 762
2034 832
2035 901
2036 970
2037 1,040
2038 1,109
2039 1,178
2040 1,247
2041 1,317
2042 1,386
2043 1,455
2044 1,525
2045 1,594
2046 1,663
2047 1,733
2048 1,802
2049 1,871
2050 1,940
2051 2,010
2052 2,079
2053 2,148
Ok, bring in the Nigerian, Philippinno , Vietnamese and Indian priests. As Pope Benedict called for, the Re-evangelization of Europe.
The Catholic church is now a minority in Ireland, replaced by secular paganism.
The Irish, who fought the British for their freedom and won it after hundreds of years have thrown away their Catholic faith to become just like their captors. They are no longer a Catholic country and it only took 100 years for the British Protestants to see their victory.
Please pray for the land of my father and pray for the dwindling number of true Catholics in Ireland.