A
priest shortage is the situation of a reduced number of
priestA priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively.Priests and priestesses...
s in religions, especially the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
. Pope Benedict XVI said on 11 September 2006 in
AltöttingAltötting is a town in Bavaria, capital of the district Altötting.This small town is famous for the Gnadenkapelle , of one of the most visited shrines in Germany. This is a tiny octagonal chapel which keeps a venerated statue of the Virgin Mary...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, that he is sad over this situation in the Roman Catholic Church. The 1980s and 1990s saw drops in the number of priests, a trend which has been reversed in the 21st century, which has seen moderate growth in priest numbers. The number of Catholic priests is now increasing worldwide, but there have been small declines in figures for Europe and the Americas.
With regard to the USA, in the book
Goodbye, Good Men, the author, Michael S.
Discussion
Ask a question about 'Priest shortage' Start a new discussion about 'Priest shortage' Answer questions from other users |
A
priest shortage is the situation of a reduced number of
priestA priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities. Their office or position is the priesthood, a term which may also apply to such persons collectively.Priests and priestesses...
s in religions, especially the
Roman Catholic ChurchThe Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church. With more than a billion members, over half of all Christians and more than one-sixth of the world's population, the Catholic Church is a communion of the Western, or Latin Rite Church, and...
. Pope Benedict XVI said on 11 September 2006 in
AltöttingAltötting is a town in Bavaria, capital of the district Altötting.This small town is famous for the Gnadenkapelle , of one of the most visited shrines in Germany. This is a tiny octagonal chapel which keeps a venerated statue of the Virgin Mary...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, that he is sad over this situation in the Roman Catholic Church. The 1980s and 1990s saw drops in the number of priests, a trend which has been reversed in the 21st century, which has seen moderate growth in priest numbers. The number of Catholic priests is now increasing worldwide, but there have been small declines in figures for Europe and the Americas.
Background
With regard to the USA, in the book
Goodbye, Good Men, the author, Michael S. Rose claims that orthodox seminary applicants may be discriminated against and turned away in many American dioceses.
Another book which discusses this topic is
Are Today's Seminaries Catholic?: The Unholy Subversion of Priestly Formation, published in 1990, which was the first book to postulate that for Catholic bishops to destroy the Catholic Church, they would have to begin by destroying and eliminating the Catholic priesthood starting with orthodox seminarians.
Consequences
The priest shortage leads to a sacramental and pastoral deficiency for the faithful of a certain area. The distances, which must be covered for a visit to a mass, baptism, etc. become ever longer, since the reduced number of priests understandably leads to a reduced amount of services. On the other hand this means for the priests, that the distances become greater, and they thus have less time for the individual churchgoer, since they must care for a greater amount of them.
In some western countries the shortages have meant many parishes have had to share a priest and staff with one or more other parishes, or have had to close. In many parishes, some of the duties performed by priests are instead performed by other personnel, such as
DeaconDeacon is a role in the Christian Church that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions...
s and members of the laity.
Further literature
- Dean R. Hoge
Dean R. Hoge was an American sociologist, who spent decades studying American Catholics, especially empirical surveys on the priesthood....
: The First Five Years of the Priesthood: A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests. Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 2002. Page 3.
- A. W. Richard Sipe: Celibacy in Crisis: A Secret World Revisited. Brunner-Routledge, New York and Hove 2003. Page 136.
External links