Priestly Vocations in America: A Look At the Numbers

[HagiaSophia]

The universal Church has enjoyed spectacular growth in the number of seminarians since 1978. When John Paul II became Pope, there were 63,882 diocesan and religious seminarians studying philosophy and theology. Twenty-four consecutive years of growth brought the number to 112,643. The number fell back slightly to 112,373 in 2003, the last year for which full statistics are available. But that figure is still a 76 percent increase over the number for 1978.

In the midst of this worldwide vocation boom, however, the Church in the United States has suffered a vocation collapse. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the total number of American diocesan and religious seminarians in college and theology seminary programs decreased from 9,021 in 1978 to 4,790 in 2003–a decline of nearly 47 percent.

"…Omaha Archbishop Elden Curtiss cited additional ecclesial factors that have contributed to the collapse:
I am personally aware of certain vocation directors, vocation teams, and evaluation boards that turn away candidates who do not support the possibility of ordaining women or who defend the Church’s teaching about artificial birth control, or who exhibit a strong piety toward certain devotions, such as the Rosary. When there is a determined effort to discourage orthodox candidates from priesthood and religious life, then the vocation shortage which results is caused not by a lack of vocations but by deliberate attitudes and policies which deter certain viable candidates.

In earlier issues of CWR, Leslie Payne (“Salt for Their Wounds,” February 1997) and Michael S. Rose (“A Self-Imposed Shortage,” February 2001) confirmed the truth of Archbishop Curtiss’s observations.

Rather than provide additional confirmation, this article offers a more mundane statistical look at the state of priestly vocations by examining the ratio of diocesan seminarians to Catholics in the 176 Latin-rite dioceses of the United States (excluding the Archdiocese for the Military Services). Which American dioceses are taking part in the worldwide vocation boom, and which are not? Which dioceses are enjoying dramatic increases in the number of seminarians, and which are suffering from sudden declines? How do bishops, vocation directors, and other diocesan officials account for their dioceses’ success or failure to attract priestly vocations?

ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/ziegler_seminarians1_aug05.asp
…"

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Good article.

So whats this stuff on turning away orthodox candidates? You cant say to them they are not accepted if the candidate says no to abc or ordaining women.

The nation’s 13 most vocation-rich dioceses all have fewer than 200,000 Catholics. The most vocation-rich larger dioceses are Denver (14th), Omaha (30th), Chicago (41st), Atlanta (43rd), and La Crosse, Wisconsin (44th). The most vocation-rich dioceses with more than 500,000 Catholics are Chicago, Washington (63rd), St. Paul and Minneapolis (64th), and Cincinnati (77th). Of dioceses with over 1,000,000 Catholics, only Chicago and Newark (80th) have vocation rates above the national median.
I wish I had the list of numbers and ratios, in all these rankings a slot at any given position could be anywhere from single digits to double and triple. …
…
The nation’s dioceses with the lowest ratio of seminarians to Catholics (starting with the bottom-ranked diocese) are Honolulu, Hawaii; San Diego, California; El Paso, Texas; Rockville Centre, New York; Hartford, Connecticut; Santa Rosa, California; Las Vegas, Nevada; Paterson, New Jersey; San Bernardino, California; Dallas, Texas; Brooklyn, New York; and Rochester, New York.
I wouldnt be shocked to see Hawaii at the bottom, but California, New York and Texas? I would guess that they also hold the largest populations of Catholics so in ratio comparisons that not exacly fair when Connecticut and Hawaii are listed right next to them. …
…
Rapid population increases have made it challenging to recruit diocesan seminarians, says Las Vegas’s Father Wevita. “Most of the people who live in Las Vegas are new to Las Vegas. Each month we receive 2,000 new Catholics in the Las Vegas diocese. This has been the case for last ten years. It takes a few years to settle and call Las Vegas their home.” San Bernardino vocation director Sister Sarah Shrewsbury, OSC, observes that the number of Catholics in her diocese has quadrupled to one million in the past 25 years.
I guess they have a point to a certain extent, but this is only a few areas.
…
…
With rare exceptions, other dioceses particularly affected by the clerical abuse scandal tend to be vocation-poor; these dioceses include Lexington, Kentucky (24th), Cincinnati (77th), Portland, Oregon (102nd), Palm Beach (103rd), Tucson (140th), Manchester, New Hampshire (144th), Springfield, Massachusetts (145th), Louisville (150th), Milwaukee (151st), Orange, California (154th), Boston (161st), and Los Angeles (163rd).
Wow, Portland is 102 out of 176? I was sure that Portland was one of the hardest hit. And LA I guess shocks me for being 163, I thought that area had a lot of Catholics. …
… A few vocation-poor dioceses have adopted restrictive policies for accepting seminarians from other geographical areas. San Diego’s Father Spahr says, “As a rule we do not accept men into our formation program from other areas of the country unless they have lived in the diocese for a period of five years prior to making application to our program.” “We do not take candidates from outside the US,” reports Las Vegas’s Father Vercellone. On the other hand, one quarter of Brooklyn’s seminarians are foreign (from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Poland, and the Philippines), and one half of San Bernardino’s seminarians are foreign born, though they “lived in the diocese for several years before going into the seminary,” says Sister Shrewsbury.
Interesting factors to consider, it looks like NY takes foreigners yet SD doesnt yet they are both considered “poor” but Brooklyn is ahead of SD, do the foreigners make a difference?..

Although these cultural traits may account for Hawaii’s low number of seminarians, some Pacific Island dioceses have proved to be fruitful soil for priestly vocations. While Honolulu’s nearly 235,000 Catholics had only one seminarian in 2004, the Archdiocese of Agana (Guam) had one diocesan seminarian for every 8,214 Catholics. The Diocese of the Caroline Islands, which comprises two nations that gained independence from the US in the 1980s, has one seminarian for every 14,588 Catholics. American Samoa’s Diocese of Samoa-Pago Pago is more vocation-rich than Lincoln: it boasts an extraordinary ratio of one seminarian to every 1,819 Catholics.
Again, hard numbers would shed more light on ratios like these.

Overall though I guess that big hype on “shortages” all depends on what part of the country you live, which really can make a difference, like most of the better scoring areas were central states more conservative and also smaller, while Cal, NY, Tex, etc have huge populations.

 

[Brendan]

Wow, Portland is 102 out of 176? I was sure that Portland was one of the hardest hit. And LA I guess shocks me for being 163, I thought that area had a lot of Catholics.

One also has to look at the leadership of the diocese. I have a friend in LA who is looking at the priesthood, but won’t touch the Archdiocese of LA with a 10 foot paten.

Why? +Mahoney and the various liturgical abuses he allows, if not encourages.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

Some of the low-ranking dioceses suffer from another problem. San Bernardino, for example, is a diocese that is bigger than Rhode Island yet is mostly desert. There is no real central location, the population is about 65-70% low income and, to a certain extent, transitory (that is, their work is not in the area where they live).

San Diego has a similar problem. Aside from a few large cities it, too, is mostly lower-income people who work far from where they live. Both areas have large desert components with few people.

Los Angeles suffers from a number of problems that are far beyond the scope of any article to address.

My own diocese, Orange, has been relatively fortunate to have as many vocations as we do, although many of those are Vietnamese which, from a population ratio, are over represented. Our numbers are not as good as they should be.

Deacon Ed

 

[Chalice]

Deacon Ed:

Some of the low-ranking dioceses suffer from another problem. San Bernardino, for example, is a diocese that is bigger than Rhode Island yet is mostly desert. There is no real central location, the population is about 65-70% low income and, to a certain extent, transitory (that is, their work is not in the area where they live).

San Diego has a similar problem. Aside from a few large cities it, too, is mostly lower-income people who work far from where they live. Both areas have large desert components with few people.

Los Angeles suffers from a number of problems that are far beyond the scope of any article to address.

My own diocese, Orange, has been relatively fortunate to have as many vocations as we do, although many of those are Vietnamese which, from a population ratio, are over represented. Our numbers are not as good as they should be.

Deacon Ed

Geographically San Berdoo is the largest county in California. This fact in no way impacts the low level of vocations in this diocese.

The “central location” is the county seat – the City of San Bernardino.

San Beroo has few seminarians because it has had to endure abysmal leadership over the past several years.

LA’s single biggest problem is Roger Cardinal Mahony. This guy closed the college adjacent to the seminary in Camarillo so he could sell the land to developers supposidly because of low enrollment.

Low enrollment at a Catholic college in the largest archdiocese in the USA? Low enrollment when a neighboring Catholic college (St. Thomas Aquinas College) is jam-packed? Low enrollment when other LA Catholic colleges are full?

That was infuriating. He should have leased the facility to a Catholic entity who new how to operate it. Mahony should be ashamed of himself and he should be ashamed of squandering Church resources.

 

[Fortiterinre]

HagiaSophia:

In the midst of this worldwide vocation boom, however, the Church in the United States has suffered a vocation collapse. According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the total number of American diocesan and religious seminarians in college and theology seminary programs decreased from 9,021 in 1978 to 4,790 in 2003–a decline of nearly 47 percent.

The 1970’s and 1980’s are virtually always the cellar for any kind of church statistic. As of the mid-1980’s the national vocation stats per CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) have pretty much held steady–in other words, as of ~1985 we were down to about 4,000 seminarians and we have slightly INCREASED from there.

 

[Brain]

anyone know how seattle is doing?

 

[HagiaSophia]

Deacon Ed:

Los Angeles suffers from a number of problems that are far beyond the scope of any article to address.

:crying:
Deacon Ed:

Our numbers are not as good as they should be.

After reading both parts of the article I came away with the impression however, that those dioceses where the bishop made each priest an assistant vocations recruiter, fostered Adoration and had active prayers among congregations for new priests, seem to fare better overall.

 

[Chalice]

Chalice:

Geographically San Berdoo is the largest county in California. This fact in no way impacts the low level of vocations in this diocese.

The “central location” is the county seat – the City of San Bernardino.

San Beroo has few seminarians because it has had to endure abysmal leadership over the past several years.

LA’s single biggest problem is Roger Cardinal Mahony. This guy closed the college adjacent to the seminary in Camarillo so he could sell the land to developers supposidly because of low enrollment.

Low enrollment at a Catholic college in the largest archdiocese in the USA? Low enrollment when a neighboring Catholic college (St. Thomas Aquinas College) is jam-packed? Low enrollment when other LA Catholic colleges are full?

That was infuriating. He should have leased the facility to a Catholic entity who knew how to operate it. Mahony should be ashamed of himself and he should be ashamed of squandering Church resources.

 

[Michael_AMDG]

The Archdiocese of Seattle had a lull last year - with just one priestly ordination, but this coming year there are 8 slated for ordination. There are currently 38ish seminarians I believe.

 

[maryj]

Ordained 4 priests in our diocese in May, another 28 next year!!! We pray a prayer for vocations before every Mass,

Oh, God, we earnestly beseech thee to bless this diocese with many Priests, Deacons, Borthers, Sisters, and Consecrated Seculars
who will love Thee with their whole strength
and gladly spend their entire lives to serve Thy Church
and to make Thee known and loved.
Bless our families,bless our children.
Choose from our homes, those who are needed for Thy work.
Mary, Mother of vocations, pray for us
that our families hear the calling
of your Son, Jesus