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Book examines statistics for Roman Catholic priesthood
2003-037-5
2/20/2003
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[Episcopal News Service]
In a review of 'Goodbye Father: the Celibate Male Priesthood and the Future of the Catholic Church,' (Oxford Press) by Thomas Schoenherr, noted Roman Catholic author Garry Wills notes some of the difficulty in dependable statistics. 'In the United States, the number of priests per 10,000 faithful declined from 12.9 in 1965 to 9.8 in 1990. In the same period, the priests per 10,000 in Africa declined from 5.4 to 2.3, and in Latin America from 2.3 to 1.4,' Wills said.
'Any gains made in recent years do not come even remotely close to closing that gap,' Wills adds. 'No wonder Schoenherr can report that bishops in Africa and Latin America have requested Rome's permission to ordain married men in order to fill their imperative need for more priests.'
According to Wills, 'World figures for the priesthood are clear. The Catholic Almanac of 2001 gives the Vatican's own figure of 404,620 priests in 1998. In 1977, the year before John Paul II became pope, the figure was 410,030. Priests have not increased in number, though they have increased dramatically in age, as one would expect where the total was not growing.'
Even as the total number of priests was declining, '300 million new Catholics came into the world during this pontiff's reign, making the priest-to-faithful disparity ever more serious,' Wills said. The situation may be better in America than Africa and Latin America but, Wills observes, 'lay Catholic ministers outnumber priests here, and most of these are women and permanent deacons (male) now number one for every 1.6 parishes,' most of them necessary because parishes are understaffed or have no staff at all. 'Despite these statistics, some bishops continue to deny that the priest shortage is more than a temporary dip in the demographics. Some dip.'
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