Priest shortage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. Please help recruit one or improve this article yourself. See the talk page for details. Please consider using {{Expert-subject}} to associate this request with a WikiProject. (February 2009)

A priest shortage is the situation of a reduced number of priests in religions, especially the Roman Catholic Church. ^[1] Pope Benedict XVI said on 11 September 2006 in Altötting, Germany, that he is sad over this situation in the Roman Catholic Church. ^[2] 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.^[3] The number of Catholic priests is now increasing worldwide, but there have been small declines in figures for Europe and the Americas.^[4]

Contents 1 Background 2 Consequences 3 Further literature 4 Notes 5 External links

[edit] Background

With regard to the USA, in the book Goodbye, Good Men,^[5] the author, Michael S. Rose claims that orthodox seminary applicants may be discriminated against and turned away in many American dioceses.^[6] One of the more interesting reasons listed in this book is that Catholic bishops have manufactured an artificial vocations "crisis" and priest shortage by rejecting prospective seminarians who do not embrace the bishops 1960s style "modern" theology (e.g. pro-feminist, pro-lesbian, anti-celibacy and anti-male). Seminary candidates who are interested in traditional elements of worship (i.e. Tridentine Mass, Gregorian Chant, etc.) or traditional theology (e.g. a celibate male priesthood, sin, confession, etc.) are deemed to be anti-Vatican II and are summarily dismissed from consideration. The Catholic Church is notorious for not disclosing accurate statistics about itself. One statistic that is never reported is the number of men who apply to become seminarians but are rejected for traditionalist tendencies.

Another book which discusses this topic is Are Today's Seminaries Catholic?: The Unholy Subversion of Priestly Formation,^[7] 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.

Seminarians and priests have had to hide their interest in the Tridentine Mass for fear of reprisal by their modernist and anti-tradition minded superiors.^[8]

[edit] Consequences

The priest shortage leads to a sacramental and pastoral deficiency for the faithful of a certain area.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]} In many parishes, some of the duties performed by priests are instead performed by other personnel, such as Deacons and members of the laity. ^[9]

[edit] Further literature

• Dean R. Hoge: 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.

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

• NZZ:69.000 catholic priests married, April 20, 2007 (german)
• Leo Auf der Maur: Priest shortage in Switzerland – Viri probati und "Priestermangel": ein zukunfsweisendes Denkmodel, August 30, 2005 (german)
• Die Tagespost: Einbruch bei Priesterzahlen, April 3, 2004 (german)