As number of seminarians surges, Madison diocese seeks $30M to fund priest training

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Midway through the Sunday Mass at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Dodgeville, the service took a sharp turn toward fundraising.
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Monsignor Daniel Ganshert, the parish priest, told parishioners that for years, people in the Madison Catholic Diocese had been praying for more men to be called by God to the priesthood. The Holy Spirit has responded, Ganshert announced jubilantly.
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There are now 33 seminarians, or priests-in-training, up from six in 2003 when Bishop Robert Morlino arrived. But that increase comes with responsibility, Ganshert said.
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host.madison.com/lifestyles/faith-and-values/religion/as-number-of-seminarians-surges-madison-diocese-seeks-m-to/article_8498cc8a-2eba-5f07-9d2d-799b5ad4ca6c.html
 
How many priests are expected to be ordained from this increase in seminarians? Many are just happy with their degrees. According to these stats, it seems like there is a 10:1 ratio graduated seminarians per priests ordained.

cara.georgetown.edu/caraservices/requestedchurchstats.html

And then how many seminarians drop out before they even get their degrees? It takes, what, about 10 years to form a priest? Just something to keep in mind, that’s all. $30 million is a lot of money. Could feed a lot of homeless.
 
BTW, do you have to be a madison.com subscriber to view the entire text? Maybe there’s something with my IP, for all I know. But I did manage to read the article under Fr.Z’s blog.
 
Liberals tell us that a celibate priesthood does not work anymore and that the Catholic Church as it has existed is no longer viable. However, faithful bishops and priests have again and again shown that to be incorrect.
 
ProVobis said:
How many priests are expected to be ordained from this increase in seminarians? Many are just happy with their degrees. According to these stats, it seems like there is a 10:1 ratio graduated seminarians per priests ordained.

cara.georgetown.edu/caraservices/requestedchurchstats.html

And then how many seminarians drop out before they even get their degrees? It takes, what, about 10 years to form a priest? Just something to keep in mind, that’s all. $30 million is a lot of money. Could feed a lot of homeless.
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How do you come up with that number of 10 to 1???
 
FrDavid96 said:
How do you come up with that number of 10 to 1???
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7.6 to 1?

You got me, but it no doubt varies from diocese to diocese. (In fact, in the ElPaso diocese in 2010, there were ZERO ordinations.)

catholicworldreport.com/Item/996/called_by_name.aspx

Based on the number of ex-seminarians (including one woman) and priests (1) that I grew up with, I thought it might be much greater than that, but then to be fair there were a few prep-seminarians in there as well. Heck, I used to play lots of b-ball with them, even played weekly at a local seminary gym.

.
 
PaulfromIowa said:
Liberals tell us that a celibate priesthood does not work anymore and that the Catholic Church as it has existed is no longer viable. However, faithful bishops and priests have again and again shown that to be incorrect.
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But married men (or women, for that matter) aren’t barred from getting degrees at seminaries, are they?
 
ProVobis said:
7.6 to 1?

You got me, but it no doubt varies from diocese to diocese. (In fact, in the ElPaso diocese in 2010, there were ZERO ordinations.)

catholicworldreport.com/Item/996/called_by_name.aspx

Based on the number of ex-seminarians (including one woman) and priests (1) that I grew up with, I thought it might be much greater than that, but then to be fair there were a few prep-seminarians in there as well. Heck, I used to play lots of b-ball with them, even played weekly at a local seminary gym.

.
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Well, you’re the one who posted this
According to these stats, it seems like there is a 10:1 ratio graduated seminarians per priests ordained.
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So I’m asking you to show how you came up with that 10 to 1 ratio.

If your response is “you got me…”
then why post it in the first place?

Even if you change it to 7.6 to 1, I would still like to know how you came up with that number?
 
FrDavid96 said:
Even if you change it to 7.6 to 1, I would still like to know how you came up with that number?
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From

cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html

I took from 2014, 3631 graduated seminarians per 494 ordained priests. The ratio in the other years doesn’t seem to be that much different.

And I presume these priestly ordination includes religious as well as diocesan priests. (12k vs 26k priests presently, total)

If I’m interpreting the CARA numbers incorrectly, I’d like to know.
 
ProVobis said:
From

cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html

I took from 2014, 3631 graduated seminarians per 494 ordained priests. The ratio in the other years doesn’t seem to be that much different.

And I presume these priestly ordination includes religious as well as diocesan priests. (12k vs 26k priests presently, total)

If I’m interpreting the CARA numbers incorrectly, I’d like to know.
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That is “graduate level” seminarians, not graduated seminarians. The 2014 stat includes those still in seminary, not those completed and ordained. My son is graduating seminary college this May, but won’t be ordained for three years to the diaconate and another year before priestly ordination. There is a delay in these stats and are not meant to be seen as a direct comparison.

The past numbers were closer mainly because the numbers entering seminary now are quite a bit higher than past years.
 
Lapey said:
That is “graduate level” seminarians, not graduated seminarians. The 2014 stat includes those still in seminary, not those completed and ordained. My son is graduating seminary college this May, but won’t be ordained for three years to the diaconate and another year before priestly ordination. There is a delay in these stats and are not meant to be seen as a direct comparison.

The past numbers were closer mainly because the numbers entering seminary now are quite a bit higher than past years.
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Thank you for that clarification for 2014. But what happened to all those seminarians from previous years, dating all the way back to 1965? One would expect many more to be ordained the following years, I would think. Unless CARA is being inconsistent on showing 1/5 years for priests as opposed to accumulating stats for graduate level seminarians.

But more to the point, how many out of those 33 seminarians (again I got the number from Fr Z site as I couldn’t access the OP) can we expect to become diocesan priests?
 
ProVobis said:
From

cara.georgetown.edu/CARAServices/requestedchurchstats.html

I took from 2014, 3631 graduated seminarians per 494 ordained priests. The ratio in the other years doesn’t seem to be that much different.

And I presume these priestly ordination includes religious as well as diocesan priests. (12k vs 26k priests presently, total)

If I’m interpreting the CARA numbers incorrectly, I’d like to know.
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OK. Now I know where the number came from.

Those 2 numbers “graduate-level seminarians” and “priests ordained in that year” really cannot be compared to each other to make a ratio.

If we look at a traditional 4-year college, we can assume a fairly constant admissions rate over the years (barring something like an expansion of the college or a dramatic drop in applicants). So, every year, there will be roughly 25% each of freshmen, sophomores, juniors and seniors. So, we expect roughly 25% will graduate each year.
1 out of every 4 of the student body.

Seminary doesn’t work that way.

Graduate level seminary training can be anywhere from 3 years to as much as 12 years. It depends on how much, and what type of undergraduate college each applicant might have (someone who has a BA in philosophy will need less graduate-level classes than one who has a BS in biology, someone who has a Masters in Theology before applying to the seminary will need even less time). Those in religious orders usually take longer than diocesan candidates because more time is needed for formation into the charisms and lifestyle of that particular order.

There was a link to another article about the Diocese of Madison where the diocese states that their graduate-level seminary takes between 8 and 10 years. That seems to be in the higher end of the spectrum.

For that reason, we cannot look at those 2 numbers (graduate-level seminarians & this year’s ordinations) and draw any meaningful conclusions from the comparison—on a national level.

If we wanted to do that, we would have to break-down the total number of graduate-level seminarians into years—in other words, class of '15, class of '20, class of '25, etc.

So, if we look at the statistic that says “there were 494 priests ordained in 2013,” we have to ask "over the years, how many seminarians actually joined the class of 2013 over the previous 12 years?

Those statistics aren’t kept on a national level.
 
Good explanation, Fr. David. Thanks.

Shows I should be looking for a success rate rather than a failure rate. But then the individuals whom I privately helped out dropped out eventually so thus my pessimism in these matters. I can see where the realization of 12 years can be a barrier to many, especially considering bishop and policy changes over that period.
 
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