Vocations are not growing in the West. The American Church would require over 800 ordinations a year (twice the current number) just to keep up with the loss of priests who leave, die or retire from active ministry.
Vocations are growing in Africa, where no person who works for the Church starves and gets a respectable position in the community.
The lack of vocations has nothing to do with celibacy and everything to do with liberalism. To use a small example, my sister attends a conservative parish in her archdiocese, where the pastor is from Eastern Europe. At this parish, there are no altar girls, almost all boys become altar boys, and the parish has students currently in the seminary. The altar boys are exposed to the priesthood and, as a consequence, think seriously about it as a vocation.
By contrast, far larger and wealthier parishes in the archdiocese produce no vocations, because the boys aren't given the same exposure to the priesthood and never think seriously about it as a vocation.
The pattern repeats itself on a larger scale: more conservative dioceses and orders are blessed with vocations, and more liberal dioceses and orders are not. In fact, conservative candidates expressing an interest in the priesthood are often turned away.
Vocations are not growing in the West. The American Church would require over 800 ordinations a year (twice the current number) just to keep up with the loss of priests who leave, die or retire from active ministry.Depends on where you look. In conservative dioceses the vocations are growing. In liberal dioceses they are dropping. Overall we have leveled out, and I suspect will be rising soon. We are hovering around 500/year right now, and I think it will go up from there quickly.
patent