Dioceses with most severe priest shortages

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I know most dioceses have a shortage of vocations and, by extension, priests but which dioceses have the most severe shortage? I’ve been discerning the possibility that God might be calling to me serve in the area of most need. Thank you.
 
I would be careful with that website, first off it doesn’t mention that seminarians have increased over the last five years and probably will keep increasing. Also, they are pushing for liberal reforms on the website. In addition, the shortages in priest is nothing new, at the turn of the last century we had the same problem, it will balance out with good catechsis and good vocations. It is a man-made problem caused by the devil and the culture. Changing 2000 years of history isn’t going to fix it. In fact protestant seminaries are also down throughout the country as well, so it isn’t a matter of allowing women priest and married clergy that is going to magically solve the problem. Jesus did say that the harvest is great and that harvester will be few. Pray for vocations. Now I know this was off topic, but I thought I would throw my four cents in. Also, I can tell you which Diocese isn’t having a problem and that is the traditionalist Diocese of Lincoln, which has more ordinations in one year than the liberal Diocese of Dayton Ohio has had in the last ten years.
 
Sir_Anthony said:
I would be careful with that website, first off it doesn’t mention that seminarians have increased over the last five years and probably will keep increasing. Also, they are pushing for liberal reforms on the website. In addition, the shortages in priest is nothing new, at the turn of the last century we had the same problem, it will balance out with good catechsis and good vocations. It is a man-made problem caused by the devil and the culture. Changing 2000 years of history isn’t going to fix it. In fact protestant seminaries are also down throughout the country as well, so it isn’t a matter of allowing women priest and married clergy that is going to magically solve the problem. Jesus did say that the harvest is great and that harvester will be few. Pray for vocations. Now I know this was off topic, but I thought I would throw my four cents in. Also, I can tell you which Diocese isn’t having a problem and that is the traditionalist Diocese of Lincoln, which has more ordinations in one year than the liberal Diocese of Dayton Ohio has had in the last ten years.
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Lincoln is a good example that the “reform” people think is needed to produce more priests is ridiculous. Most of these priests are from local families, and they were brought up in the diocese, and probably didn’t know their parish was “conservative” until they had already thought about the priesthood.
 
I’m touched by your desire to serve in places people mostly need priests.

But I know it can be hard, many Priests go to 3 or 4 churches in one morning to celebrate mass. 😦

Hard work!
**
GOOD LUCK.** May the Lord bless you!
 
Please view the futurechurch website with caution. Their goals are stated as ending mandatory celibacy, ordaining women priests and ordaining women deacons.

I pulled up the statistics of a couple of dioceses and the numbers simply don’t add up. It’s as if someone used an excel spreadsheet, but wasn’t sure how to accurately use it.

According to their statistics, the Diocese of Lafayette, LA, had 75 permanent deacons in 2001, only 5 in 2004, and 61 in 2006. That’s a bit of a fluctuation! Also in the same diocese, the “total Catholic population” dropped about 5,000 from 2004 to 2006, the number of priests increased by 7, BUT the number of “Catholics per Priest” went from 1,604 in 2004 to a whopping 4,174 in 2006. The math is simply WRONG.

By the same token, it shows Baton Rouge with 105 religious order priests in 2006 (up from 37 in 2004), but with only 72 total priests in the diocese in 2006??? Must be the ghost priests mentioned in one of the other forums? :confused: This diocese went from having 1,830 Catholics per priest in 2004 to a very comfortable 202 in 2006. (with a drop in the total number of priests and an increase in Total Catholic Population) Way to Go!

:confused: :confused:
 
I seem to recall hearing that Hawaii is quite short, and I know that the Armed Forces are all extremely short(They are looking into importing priests from other countries, as some dioceses do, but this has some problems)
 
The June 2006 issue of Catholic World Report magazine has an article that discusses this. Send me a PM if you want me to send it to you via email.

And like others have warned…avoid “FutureChurch” !!
 
I found this two-part article to be really interesting, and at the end there is a link to a really comprehensive graphic with vocations information from 2004:

ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/ziegler_seminarians1_aug05.asp

That information is a bit old, though. Here is a follow-up analysis from the next year, but it doesn’t have a comprehensive graphic like the other article did:

ignatius.com/Images/Products/USVocations.pdf

Apparently there can be a lot of fluctuation over the years – in some dioceses, anyway. Alas, Honolulu is still the lowest. I was talking to a Jesuit in Honolulu the other day who told me that in dioceses like that, often as many as 50% of the priests are from religious orders.

Hope these help! God bless.
+AMDG+
 
Hello I know that my Diocese is severely short on priests. Out priest is so overloaded he must say mass at 4 churches that we have a Eucharist Service once a month. It is bad in southwest Missouri.
 
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