In the years since
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
there has been a substantial reduction in the number of
priest
A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particu ...
s ''
per capita
''Per capita'' is a Latin phrase literally meaning "by heads" or "for each head", and idiomatically used to mean "per person". The term is used in a wide variety of social sciences and statistical research contexts, including government statistic ...
'' in the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, a phenomenon considered by many to constitute a "shortage" in the number of priests. From 1980 to 2012, the ratio of Catholics per priest increased globally, with the number of Catholics per priest going from 1,895 to 3,126.
In 2014, there were 49,153 parishes in the world that had no resident priest pastor.
Between 1970 and 2017, the number of priests declined slightly from 419,728 to 414,582, despite a large increase in the number of Catholics.
Shortage by area
Worldwide
Worldwide, the number of priests in 1970 was 419,728. In 2017, there were a total of 414,582 priests. While the total number of priests worldwide has therefore remained about the same since 1970, the Catholic population has nearly doubled, growing from 653.6 million in 1970 to 1.229 billion in 2012.
In 2012 the global number of candidates for the priesthood also showed its first decline in recent years.
The number of parishes with no resident priest pastor has grown from 39,431 in 1970 to 49,153 in 2012.
The number of parishes without a priest does not include the thousands of parishes that have closed or merged for lack of priests.
North America
Mexico is facing a "crisis of vocation," according to Elio Masferrer, a religion expert at Mexico's National School of Anthropology and History. Over 85 percent of the population is Catholic, but one priest is expected to minister to approximately 7,000 followers. In the United States, where approximately one quarter of the population is Catholic, there is one priest per 2,000 Catholics.
![Gap Between Priests and Catholics in USA](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/Gap_Between_Priests_and_Catholics_in_USA.svg)
The situation in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
is that the Catholic Church is unique among eleven of the largest Christian denominations "in several areas: the dwindling supply of priests, the increasing number of lay people per priest, the declining number of priests per parish,
ndthe increasing number of 'priestless' parishes
..In the Catholic Church, the total number of priests has declined from 58,534 in 1981 to 52,227 in 1991, 45,713 in 2001"
and 37,192 in 2015 (a 36 percent loss between 1981 and 2016).
With the Catholic population increasing steadily
and the number of priests declining, the number of laypeople per priest has climbed from 875:1 in 1981 to 1,113:1 in 1991, 1,429:1 in 2001 and 2,000:1 in 2012 (a 130 percent increase). The declining number of priests in parish ministry is producing a marked increase in the number of 'priestless' parishes. In 1960, only about 3 percent of Catholic parishes had no resident pastor. By 2000 that figure was up to 13 percent, and by the summer of 2003 it had risen to 16 percent".
Between 1965 and 2012, the number of USA parishes without a priest climbed from 549 to 3,496.
Research by Davidson found "a growing shortage of Catholic priests but an increasing supply—some analysts say an oversupply—of clergy in most Protestant denominations".
Similarly, Richard Schoenherr found in 1993 that "the current clergy shortage is a distinct Catholic crisis".
Recent developments
In 2013 the statistics suggest the tide may be turning.
"
ere were 3,608 post-baccalaureate U.S. seminarians last year, a net increase of 125 seminarians, or 4 percent, over the previous year and the highest number since the early 1990s. More than three-quarters of them were studying for the diocesan priesthood, while 24 percent intend to be ordained for religious orders." The numbers are up across the board in non-Catholic seminaries too. "The organization that accredits theological schools said 75,431 people were studying for the ministry at 261 institutions during the last academic year, an increase of .6 percent from the year before."
This hopeful expectation is, however, not backed by an increase in ordinations, which are stable at a low level of 6–7 per year per million Catholics for over 15 years.
But
Theological College
A seminary, school of theology, theological seminary, or divinity school is an educational institution for educating students (sometimes called ''seminarians'') in scripture, theology, generally to prepare them for ordination to serve as clergy, ...
's Father Phillip Brown said a rise in enrollment is only part of the story:
In 2008 the enrollment of
Saint John's Seminary in
Boston
Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...
rose to 87, double that of two years earlier. The rise was credited to an increase of foreign-born seminarians as well as an increasing number of members of Catholic revitalization movements, most prominent the
Neocatechumenal Way
The Neocatechumenal Way, also known as the Neocatechumenate, or NCW (colloquially, The Way or Neo-Cats) is an association of the Christian faithful within the Catholic Church. It was formed in Madrid in 1964 by Kiko Argüello and Carmen Herná ...
. By 2016 the number rose further to 114.
Europe
Der Spiegel
''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...
has reported that Germany, which used to send missionary priests to other countries, now has a shortage of new clergy. As a result, some German congregations have merged, and the church has recruited priests from elsewhere. Approximately 10 percent of Catholic priests in Germany, about 1,300, are immigrants, with many hailing from India.
In Ireland, the decade from 2002 to 2012 saw the number of Catholic diocesan priests drop 13 per cent, similar to the decrease in the number of priests in religious congregations. And many priests remaining are elderly and approaching retirement. “The crisis is now mathematically certain. If we keep going the way we are, the future of the Irish priesthood is now unsustainable,” noted Fr. Brendan Hoban, head of the Association of Catholic priests. In 2017 Fr Sean McDonagh wrote an article in the Tablet saying "Over 65 per cent of Irish priests are aged 55 or over. There are only two priests under the age of 40 in the
Archdiocese of Dublin
The Archbishop of Dublin is an archepiscopal title which takes its name after Dublin, Ireland. Since the Reformation, there have been parallel apostolic successions to the title: one in the Catholic Church and the other in the Church of Irelan ...
. A priest in
Killala diocese, Fr
Brendan Hoban
Fr. Brendan Hoban is an Irish Catholic priest in the Killala Diocese, columnist and author of a number of books. Fr. Hoban was born in Ballycastle, Co. Mayo in 1948. Educated in Ballycastle Boys National School, St Muredach¹s College, Ballina a ...
, pointed out that there has been a priest and celebration of the Eucharist in his parish –Moygownagh – since the eighth century. But he believes he will be that last priest in that parish. At the moment there is a priest in every parish in Killala. Within 20 years there will be seven serving 22 parishes spread out over a wide area. The situation is much same in other dioceses. The research points out that to maintain the status quo would mean ordaining 82 priests each year. The reality is that 20 students entered Maynooth in September 2013. It is likely that only 10 or 12 will be ordained in 2020".
In Spain, Catholic Church sources confirmed that the country is experiencing a shortage of priests. Rural priests are in some cases responsible for up to a half dozen parishes at a time. In one case, a priest in Cantabria is responsible for 22 parishes. A study sponsored by the church showed that in 2007, at least 10,615 of the 23,286 parishes in Spain had no priest in permanent residence.
In 2009, only 90 priests were ordained in France, a significant drop from the 112 that were ordained a decade before. The church hierarchy is alarmed and has managed the problem thus far with recruitment from abroad. There are over 1,300 foreign Catholic priests in France, or approximately 10% of the priesthood; over 650 come from Africa, typically from poor African countries such as Togo, Madagascar and Burkina Faso, where churches have enough priests or simply cannot pay for more.
Poland has historically had one of the highest ordination rates per Catholics in Europe, and while it is still remains far higher than other European Catholic countries such as Ireland, Italy, or Spain, since the 1970s there has been a steady decrease in ordinations in Poland. Some causes for this decline are attributed to decreased religiosity, decrease in birth rates, increase in emigration, and a decline of enrollment in college seminaries.
Africa
The region where Catholicism is experiencing its fastest growth is in Africa,
and the growth in the number of priests is not keeping up with the growth of congregants. The Catholic population there has grown by 238 percent since 1980 and is approaching 200 million, thus far exceeding the growth in the number of priests, which was up 131 percent in the same period.
Latin America
The National Catholic Reporter describes the priest shortage in Latin America: "Like most other parts of the world, this vast region, home to more than 40 percent of all the world's Catholics, has a worrying shortage of ordained presbyters required for validly celebrating the sacraments, the lifeblood of Catholic Christianity."
During his visit to Brazil, Pope Benedict XVI briefly noted in his remarks the shortage of priests in Latin America. The shortage of priests is a problem that the church hierarchy there describes as particularly acute. At a time when the Catholic church is losing membership to Pentecostal churches, Evangelical Protestant preachers outnumber Catholic priests 2 to 1. In 1980, nine of every 10 Brazilians self-identified as Roman Catholics, but that percentage has steadily dropped. By 2007 only two-thirds of Brazilians remain Catholics as the country struggles with a shortage of priests.
In 2014 Bishop Erwin Krautler, a bishop who leads a geographically expansive diocese in the Brazilian rain forest met with Pope Francis to discuss how much the priest shortage affects the church in the Southern Hemisphere. Krautler’s diocese only has 27 priests for 700,000 Catholics. As a result, many Catholics might only hear Mass a couple of times a year.
Asia
Until recently India had sufficient priests but is now experiencing difficulty in recruiting seminarians. "Until some years ago, brighter young men willing to join the priesthood were plenty in India. But now, for various reasons, as their preference is changing, it threatens to pose many crises for the community in the future," said Father Udumala Bala, the deputy secretary general of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI).
In the Philippines, the ratio of priests to Catholics is approximately 1 to 8,000. But Archbishop
Luis Antonio Cardinal Tagle says the ideal number should be one priest per 2,000 Catholics. In Manila in 2013, the ratio was 1 priest to 20,000 parishioners.
Consequences
The shortage is being dealt with in a variety of ways. A practice known as "linking" has emerged, where two parishes share the same priest but remain separate otherwise. Some parishes hire a lay administrator. Churches have given guidelines on lay-led services. In some places, Mass at the local church is celebrated only every other week. Some countries are importing priests from other nations. Priests in India have been saying Masses for people in the West and traveling to wealthier countries as temporary pastors to help relieve the priest shortage in the West.
At the same time, however, there has been a growth in the number of men and women entering other forms of ministry in the church, such as
deacons
A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...
and
lay ecclesial ministers
Lay ecclesial ministry is the term adopted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to identify the relatively new category of pastoral ministers in the Catholic Church who serve the Church but are not ordained. Lay ecclesial ministers ...
. There has been a dramatic increase in the participation and activity of the laity in general. Often, this is not a matter of deacons or lay ecclesial ministers taking over priestly roles, but of priests no longer taking over diaconal or lay roles. Canon law (CIC 517) does allow for a deacon or lay ecclesial minister to be appointed as ''de facto'' pastor of a parish, under the supervision of a priest moderator, in the absence of a qualified presbyter.
According to sociologist
Dean Hoge
Dean R. Hoge (May 27, 1937 – September 13, 2008) was an American sociologist, who spent decades studying American Catholics, especially empirical surveys on the priesthood.
Biography
Hoge spend his childhood at New Knoxville, OhioHolley, JoDea ...
, the number of Roman Catholics in the world has been growing, but "the growth in the number of priests has been zero." Wealthy western nations have a shrinking population of priests, while other countries are adding priests, "though not always fast enough." Hoge offered eight suggestions to offset the priest shortage in the United States: recruit more seminarians, incardinate more immigrant priests, ordain more married former Anglican clergy, permit marriage for diocesan priests, incardinate more former Catholic priests who left the church for marriage, ordain more permanent deacons, employ more lay ministers, or ordain women.
Causes
Various causes for the priest shortage have been suggested and, in some cases, studied. They include:
Clerical celibacy
In 1985, Dean R. Hoge conducted a survey of Catholic college students and determined that celibacy was the most significant deterrent keeping men from entering the priesthood in the
Latin Church
, native_name_lang = la
, image = San Giovanni in Laterano - Rome.jpg
, imagewidth = 250px
, alt = Façade of the Archbasilica of St. John in Lateran
, caption = Archbasilica of Saint Joh ...
(although highly praised, celibacy is not a
legal requirement in the
Eastern Catholic canon law
The Eastern Catholic canon law is the law of the 23 Catholic ''sui juris'' (autonomous) particular churches of the Eastern Catholic tradition. Eastern Catholic canon law includes both the common tradition among all Eastern Catholic Churches, now ...
of the
Eastern Catholic Churches
The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (''sui iuris'') particular churches of th ...
). Hoge estimated that if celibacy were optional for diocesan priests, there would be four times the number of men entering the priesthood.
Age of current priests
The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate study in 2008 noted that half of the approximately 19,000 active diocesan priests in the U.S. expected to retire before 2019.
Smaller family size
Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Ratzinger, identified smaller family size and changing family priorities as the cause of the Catholic priest shortage, rather than priestly celibacy. "If today the average number of children is 1.5", he reasoned, "the question of possible priests takes on a very different role from what it was in ages when families were considerably larger." The main obstacle, he argued, was parents "who have very different expectations for their children."
Sexual abuse scandal
The exposure of
sexual abuse
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...
committed by Catholic priests in various parts of the world tarnished the reputation of priests globally. This is theorized to have discouraged some men from pursuing the priesthood and contributed to the shortage. This is yet to be determined.
Andrew Sullivan
Andrew Michael Sullivan (born 10 August 1963) is a British-American author, editor, and blogger. Sullivan is a political commentator, a former editor of ''The New Republic'', and the author or editor of six books. He started a political blog, ' ...
of the ''
Intelligencer
Intelligencer is an archaic word for a person who gathers intelligence, like a spy or secret agent. The term may refer to:
Newspapers
* ''Daily Intelligencer (disambiguation)'', multiple papers
* ''Edwardsville Intelligencer'' (1862–present) ...
'' describes an "unspoken paradox" of an organization that condemns homosexual acts yet has a significant number of gay priests within its ranks.
Socioeconomic expectations
Sandra Yocum, a professor specializing in faith and culture at the
University of Dayton
The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the nation and the second-largest private university in Ohio. The univ ...
, notes that in the past the priesthood carried high prestige in
Catholic culture
Christian culture generally includes all the cultural practices which have developed around the religion of Christianity. There are variations in the application of Christian beliefs in different cultures and traditions.
Christian culture has i ...
: having a son become a priest was once seen as a pinnacle of success for working-class Catholic families. But as socioeconomic opportunities and expectations have risen in western societies, a son joining the priesthood could be seen as diminishing the family's prosperity.
See also
*
Catholic Church hierarchy
The hierarchy of the Catholic Church consists of its bishops, priests, and deacons. In the ecclesiological sense of the term, "hierarchy" strictly means the "holy ordering" of the Church, the Body of Christ, so to respect the diversity of gif ...
*
Catholic religious order
In the Catholic Church, a religious order is a community of consecrated life with members that profess solemn vows. They are classed as a type of religious institute.
Subcategories of religious orders are:
* canons regular (canons and canone ...
*
Consecrated life
Consecrated life (also known as religious life) is a state of life in the Catholic Church lived by those faithful who are called to follow Jesus Christ in a more exacting way. It includes those in institutes of consecrated life (religious and se ...
*
Diocesan priest
In Christianity, the term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or otherwise members of religious life. A secular priest (sometimes known as a diocesan priest) is a priest who commits themselves to a certain geogra ...
*
Religious minister
In Christianity, a minister is a person authorised by a church or other religious organization to perform functions such as teaching of beliefs; leading services such as weddings, baptisms or funerals; or otherwise providing spiritual guidanc ...
*
Secular clergy
In Christianity, the term secular clergy refers to deacons and priests who are not monastics or otherwise members of religious life. A secular priest (sometimes known as a diocesan priest) is a priest who commits themselves to a certain geogra ...
*
Vocational Discernment in the Catholic Church Vocational discernment is the process in which men or women in the Catholic Church discern, or recognize, their vocation in the church. The vocations are the life as layman in the world, either married or single, the ordained life and the consecrat ...
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
{{Authority control
Catholic priesthood
20th-century Catholicism
21st-century Catholicism