So, are there any large or moderaltely large orders that are seeing growth?
Interesting question… Take a moment to look at this TIME magazine article from 1952:
time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,815956,00.html
25 years ago, there were only 175 American Jesuits in the mission field; today there are 1,022. 25 years ago, the mission territory of the American Jesuits was largely restricted to Alaska, Central America and U.S. Indian reservations. Today their territory includes Japan, the Philippines, the Caroline and Marshall Islands, Ceylon, Nepal, India, China and Iraq.
Think about it… if in the course of 25 years there could be a ten-fold expansion back then, it could still happen today…
New orders could grow to be that large in a quarter decade… By the time of Bl Theresa of Calcutta’s death in 1999, her order was already over 2,500 strong and it is still growing…
Old orders could embrace authentic renewel. FWIW, some of the orders that for the past 20 years have been rather synonomous with being liberal are experiencing a bit of a 1-2-3 punch… 1) the “progressives” are getting grey and retiring 2) some of the younger priests they are ordaining are suprisingly orthodox and 3) some of the provinces they have in Africa and Asia are rather full…
That is right, in some of the orders that are large enough to be more international in character, I have been told that while the US/Western Euro provinces are in decline, some of the Latin/south American/African/Asian provinces are experiencing some appreciable growth.
From:
ad2000.com.au/articles/2007/apr2007p4_2500.html
In 2004-2005, the number of religious and diocesan priests grew from 405,891 to 406,411 (a growth of 0.13 percent). However, the distribution of priests differed from continent to continent, with their numbers increasing in Africa and Asia (respectively, by 3.8 percent and 3.55 percent) and falling in Europe and America (by 0.5 percent), and in Oceania (by 1.8 percent).
The numbers of candidates to the priesthood, both diocesan and religious, increased overall, from 113,044 in 2004 to 114,439 in 2005 (an increase of 1.23 percent). Vocations are most numerous in Africa and Asia, but they are falling in Europe and are stationary in Oceania.
If anything, right now we are dealing with the same or similar levels of priests and religous as America was dealing (vocations per capita) with in 1900. We are prone to feel the pinch a little more because unlike our faithful forebearers, we are living with empty convents and monasteries and schools that have been shut down. Buildings that were not built back then are empty now…
Also consider:
The US alone has more priests than the top three Catholic countries combined (41,000 in the US to 37,000 in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines combined). This makes talk of a “priest shortage” in the US almost laughable, at least in comparison with many countries struggling to care for much larger Catholic populations.
SOURCE:
speroforum.com/site/article.asp?idCategory=34&idsub=127&id=2427
Did you actually know that there are more diocesan clergy as of 2006 than there were in 1965?
Its true. In 1965 there were 35,925 diocesan priests. in 2006 there were 28,299 diocesan priests for a total of 43,094 diocesan clerics in the service of the Church in the US. Where did those extra 14,795 clerics come from?
The permanant diaconate.
We always forget to mention some of the new movements and vocations in the Church. In the past four decades I believe the US has gone from zero permanant deacons to 14,795+. (As deacons ARE in fact in Holy Orders, while they should not be thought of “mini-priests” or “sub-priets” they in fact ARE clergy. When their number is included, diocesan clergy numbers in the US are actually UP!)
Also, nature abhors a vacuum… Lay groups and apostolates - from the Legion of Mary, Opus Dei, Miles Jesu, Regnum Christi are growing… Lay run Catholic apostolates (like Catholic Answers!) have multiplied. The Catholic homeschooling movement has rapidly grown. Friendly bloggers like Jimmy Akin and a whole host of others are reaching HUGE audiences around the world from the comfort of their home office.
But please bear in mind that a good number of the venerable souls that helped us to acheive the 1965 peak numbers for religous vocations did not belong to only a handful of REALLY large orders. Certainly the Jesuits, the Franciscan family of OFMs, Capuchins, and Conventuals, Benedictines, Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Salesians, Oblates of Mary Immaculate and the Congregation of Holy Cross were some of the groups that did have some big numbers. But (and I don’t have the statistics anymore, sorry) a lot of much smaller orders always made up the backbone of those large numbers…
