Here Today, Gone Tomorrow?

The more the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. has grown in recent decades, the more crippling has become its shortage of priests. In 1966 the American Catholic population was 46 million. At that time, the number of priests available to offer the sacraments was some 59,000, or approximately one priest for every 780 parishioners. Today there are 57 million Catholics and 53,000 priests, or one priest for every 1,100 parishioners. One result is that more than 1,000 parishes now have no priest at all. Last week two sociologists published research predicting that the crisis will only get worse.

& Richard Schoenherr, of the University of Wisconsin, and his former student Lawrence Young, now at Brigham Young University, released the results of a six-year study of the trends for clergy in 86 dioceses. The 163-page report, titled The Catholic Priest in the U.S., which was prepared for the U.S. bishops' conference, makes a gloomy assessment: if current directions are not reversed, by the year 2005 there will be 74 million Catholics and fewer than 34,000 priests, or one priest for every 2,200 parishioners. The causes for the continued decline: fewer and fewer men are finding the priesthood attractive as a career, and those who are already ordained are resigning at the alarming rate of 37% a year. Death and retirement will also claim their toll. The average age of priests, which was 47 in 1966, is over 51 today and climbing.

The U.S. hierarchy has been appointing lay people, nuns and ordained deacons to take charge of parishes that lack priests. And last November Catholic bishops approved rites for Sunday worship that can be led by nonordained parish leaders in priestless congregations. To Schoenherr, a former priest, such measures are no more than stopgaps. As he sees it, the chief problem is celibacy. Eventually, he maintains, the church "will have to accept the ordination of married men in order to recruit and retain." But that is not likely to happen any time soon. Although a majority of American Catholics believe that priests ought to be allowed to marry, Pope John Paul II has repeatedly and adamantly reaffirmed the ancient requirement of celibacy for priests of the Latin rite.