[sinkspur]

The Madison diocese has 99 priests to serve 135 parishes in 11 counties, down from 127 priests in 1997, said spokesman Bill Brophy. The diocese projects the number of priests will dip to 34 by 2025, Brophy said.

Thirty-four priests to serve 135 parishes (and that assumes no growth of Catholics in the diocese)?

When lay Catholics in the United States have to settle for a Communion service instead of the Mass two out of four Sundays, they'll begin to vote for a solution to the priest shortage with their checkbooks.

[ninenot]

Sinky, "projections" have a way of changing. Early on, you projected to your wife that you would be rich and famous.

[Loyalist]

Priests and religious have been turning over more and more of their roles to the laity for the past forty years, and the laity have been only too happy to take them on.

They're getting what they've wanted all these years; a lay-run, democratic church, where the priesthood of all believers comes before the priesthood of mere presiders.

They should be rejoicing, not complaining.

[RobbyS]

If Catholics can drive twenty miles to a mall, they can drive 20 miles to go to mass.

[Antoninus]

When lay Catholics in the United States have to settle for a Communion service instead of the Mass two out of four Sundays, they'll begin to vote for a solution to the priest shortage with their checkbooks.

Yeah, but it won't be the solution you're hoping for. If the US can't recruit good men to be celibate priests like the rest of the world, we'll become a mission country.

I'd much prefer Fr. Nugwegwe from Kenya than Fr. Sinkspur, his wife and grandkids.