The Catholic Church Has a Manpower Problem: Fewer Priests Every Year
A sharp, decadelong decline in the number of young men who want to become priests has only accelerated since the pandemic. The lure of other career options and a growing wariness about a lifelong—and celibate—commitment is leading Catholics to turn away from a once honored path, even in the faithful global South.
Since 1970, the global Catholic population has doubled, but the number of priests has dipped. As aging clergy die, the ranks of those waiting to take their place has dwindled, leaving some parishes with no leader. Seminaries are closing or merging across the Church’s European heartland, which for centuries trained most of the world’s priests and sent them to evangelize the furthest corners of the globe.
In the past five years, the number of young men entering seminary to become priests has also consistently declined in Latin America and Asia, leaving Africa as the only region still growing. Globally, the number of seminarians tumbled by some 14,000 between 2011 and 2023 to 106,495.
St. Patrick’s seminary near Dublin, Ireland, once the world’s largest with room for 500 seminarians, is down to an average of 15 new seminarians a year. The 130-year-old St. John’s seminary in southern England, built to accommodate 100 seminarians, closed in 2021 after getting no new applicants.
The decline has also hit the Church’s traditional home in Italy, the wellspring of most popes and countless cardinals.
Growing secularization, Church abuse scandals, the hardships of celibacy and more economic opportunities have all contributed to the shift away from religious work.
Italy’s falling birthrate means families are less likely to encourage their sons to become priests than in the past, especially if they are only children. Priests have also lost their exalted place in society; surveys show the number of Italians who consider themselves Catholic has declined to two-thirds, down from nearly everyone 50 years ago.
“If you go on the metro wearing a priestly collar, people may swear blasphemously at you as you pass,” said Andrea Swich, an earnest 29-year-old who recently started his sixth and final year at Venegono. He gave up a career as a physiotherapist and a girlfriend to pursue the path to priesthood. His two sisters didn’t take it well.
Swich sees an upside to the diminishing appeal of a priestly life: “No one these days becomes a priest for the salary or because of social status.”
Out of the 20 seminarians who enrolled with him, eight have quit.
At St. Patrick’s church in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the Rev. Eugene O’Neill is now the lone priest—the first time the parish has had just one priest in the past two centuries. The diocese is also dwindling. When O’Neill became a priest in the early 1990s, there were more than 200 priests in the Down and Connor diocese. Now, there are 27.
O’Neill says the lack of new vocations in Europe and other Western countries means the future of the priesthood looks more like its diverse global flock. When he took a vacation over the summer, his temporary replacement flew in from Uganda.
“Ireland used to send priests to the world. Now, they will have to come here,” he said.
There are now more seminaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo than Poland, more in India than Italy, according to Vatican figures. At the recent papal conclave European cardinals were in the minority for the first time, said the Rev. Thomas Gaunt, a Church demographics expert at the University of Georgetown.
But as living standards rise in other parts of the world, the number of seminarians is starting to fall there, too. Vocations declined 1.3% in the Americas in 2023, and plunged 4.2% in Asia. Africa, the only region with a growing number of seminarians, rose just 1.1%.
In the Philippines, a bastion of Asian Catholicism, there is growing concern about young men turning away from the priesthood, says the Rev. Randy De Jesus, executive secretary of the commission on vocations at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. Social media is shifting priorities, he said. “There’s competition.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/society-cultur...r-AA1N5LZa
A sharp, decadelong decline in the number of young men who want to become priests has only accelerated since the pandemic. The lure of other career options and a growing wariness about a lifelong—and celibate—commitment is leading Catholics to turn away from a once honored path, even in the faithful global South.
Since 1970, the global Catholic population has doubled, but the number of priests has dipped. As aging clergy die, the ranks of those waiting to take their place has dwindled, leaving some parishes with no leader. Seminaries are closing or merging across the Church’s European heartland, which for centuries trained most of the world’s priests and sent them to evangelize the furthest corners of the globe.
In the past five years, the number of young men entering seminary to become priests has also consistently declined in Latin America and Asia, leaving Africa as the only region still growing. Globally, the number of seminarians tumbled by some 14,000 between 2011 and 2023 to 106,495.
St. Patrick’s seminary near Dublin, Ireland, once the world’s largest with room for 500 seminarians, is down to an average of 15 new seminarians a year. The 130-year-old St. John’s seminary in southern England, built to accommodate 100 seminarians, closed in 2021 after getting no new applicants.
The decline has also hit the Church’s traditional home in Italy, the wellspring of most popes and countless cardinals.
Growing secularization, Church abuse scandals, the hardships of celibacy and more economic opportunities have all contributed to the shift away from religious work.
Italy’s falling birthrate means families are less likely to encourage their sons to become priests than in the past, especially if they are only children. Priests have also lost their exalted place in society; surveys show the number of Italians who consider themselves Catholic has declined to two-thirds, down from nearly everyone 50 years ago.
“If you go on the metro wearing a priestly collar, people may swear blasphemously at you as you pass,” said Andrea Swich, an earnest 29-year-old who recently started his sixth and final year at Venegono. He gave up a career as a physiotherapist and a girlfriend to pursue the path to priesthood. His two sisters didn’t take it well.
Swich sees an upside to the diminishing appeal of a priestly life: “No one these days becomes a priest for the salary or because of social status.”
Out of the 20 seminarians who enrolled with him, eight have quit.
At St. Patrick’s church in Belfast, Northern Ireland, the Rev. Eugene O’Neill is now the lone priest—the first time the parish has had just one priest in the past two centuries. The diocese is also dwindling. When O’Neill became a priest in the early 1990s, there were more than 200 priests in the Down and Connor diocese. Now, there are 27.
O’Neill says the lack of new vocations in Europe and other Western countries means the future of the priesthood looks more like its diverse global flock. When he took a vacation over the summer, his temporary replacement flew in from Uganda.
“Ireland used to send priests to the world. Now, they will have to come here,” he said.
There are now more seminaries in the Democratic Republic of Congo than Poland, more in India than Italy, according to Vatican figures. At the recent papal conclave European cardinals were in the minority for the first time, said the Rev. Thomas Gaunt, a Church demographics expert at the University of Georgetown.
But as living standards rise in other parts of the world, the number of seminarians is starting to fall there, too. Vocations declined 1.3% in the Americas in 2023, and plunged 4.2% in Asia. Africa, the only region with a growing number of seminarians, rose just 1.1%.
In the Philippines, a bastion of Asian Catholicism, there is growing concern about young men turning away from the priesthood, says the Rev. Randy De Jesus, executive secretary of the commission on vocations at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines. Social media is shifting priorities, he said. “There’s competition.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/society-cultur...r-AA1N5LZa
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
