Catholic Priest Shortage

Patrick Donnelly thought he might like to be a teacher, or maybe a chef. Then the Roman Catholic priesthood captured his imagination — an increasingly rare event in this former bastion of the faith.

In much of Europe and North America, there aren't enough Patrick Donnellys anymore. The winds of social change and sex abuse scandals have made the priesthood — with its lifetime commitment and mandatory celibacy — an unpopular career.

While the number of Catholics jumped to more than 1 billion around the globe during John Paul II's 26-year papacy, the number of new priests didn't keep pace. Reversing the decline among American and European men will be a major challenge for the next pope.

"I know many people think I'm facing a lonely life ... a hard life," said Donnelly, 25, a student at St. Patrick's College, the only seminary still running in the Republic of Ireland. Seven others closed from 1993 to 2002. "But I'm happy with my choice and people respect that. I have a love of God, and I want to share that love."

The Vatican says the church had about 405,450 priests worldwide in 2003, a 3.7 percent drop from 1978, the year John Paul took charge. But in the United States and Europe — which accounts today for nearly half of the total — numbers have fallen about 20 percent over the period.

While recruitment to the priesthood is thriving in Africa, Latin America and Asia, it's nearly fallen off the map in Ireland, which for generations was a leading exporter of priests. The average age of priests here is nearly 60.

"It's a significant problem," said the Rev. Des Hillery, director of St. Patrick's College, a 210-year-old seminary in the bustling market town of Maynooth, west of Dublin. "I don't think it's a crisis, and it doesn't have to be a crisis. ... But who knows in 10 years' time. Nobody knows what's going to happen."

The seminary had about 600 students annually in the 1960s. When Hillery arrived a decade ago it had 220. Today there are 60, and fewer than two-thirds are expected to stay the seven-year course. The archdiocese of Dublin has more than 1 million Catholics — and graduated a single priest last year, and none at all this year.

The Rev. Kevin Doran, a Dublin priest who directs a network of recruiters called the European Vocations Service, says while some parts of Europe produce large numbers of priests — notably Poland and Malta — "much of Europe qualifies as mission territory."

Doran and seminary directors across Europe say there's no easy fix to luring young men to the priesthood. They're divided about whether dropping celibacy is part of the answer.

"The culture we live in has become highly sexualized. Many people believe it can be very difficult to be fulfilled if you don't have an active sex life," Doran said.

He cited an opinion poll of Irish priests last October that found 57 percent favored dropping the requirement. He said some men rule out entering seminary because of the celibacy rule, while others drop out midway because of it.

But Doran said he remains skeptical that ending celibacy would strengthen the priesthood, which must focus on the needs of a community, not one's own family.

"In a mature, integrated human being it should be possible that the affection and care which normally goes into a marriage can go into the pastoral care of the community," Doran said.

Others say the priesthood is shrinking in Europe because today's young Catholic men are products of a more selfish age and increasingly loathe to make any long-term commitments in their late teens and early 20s.

"I don't think that the fact that they cannot marry plays the principal role. Everyone tells me that it's because they are scared," said the Rev. Charles Bonnet, superior at the Saint Irenee Seminary in Lyon, France. "This lifetime commitment plays a bigger role in their decision than does the fact of having to remain celibate."

France in the mid-1970s became the first predominantly Catholic country in Europe to suffer a collapse in seminarian numbers. A generation ago the country produced about 800 new priests annually, but today manages just 100, Bonnet said.

In Spain, the number of seminarians has declined to 1,524 this year, a 24 percent drop from 1990. Officials cite materialism and alienation from faith as bigger factors than celibacy.

"The problem is attracting people to Christian life," said Juan Miguel Prim, the rector of a seminary in a Madrid suburb. "These days, a lot of young people have no religious experience and see the church as something very distant."

In Ireland, recruitment has collapsed since the mid-1990s, when the Irish economy took off on the back of high-tech investment — and the church's image fell amid sex scandals.

In 1992, a bishop in Galway was exposed as the father of a teenager in the United States whose support he'd been secretly paying from the collection plate. In 1994, the Irish government fell apart after admitting it failed to extradite a pedophile priest wanted in Northern Ireland on criminal charges.

The floodgates since have opened for more than 3,000 civil claims and criminal cases involving allegations of sexual and physical abuse dating to the 1940s, when Ireland was impoverished and the church ran schools, workhouses and orphanages.

"Obviously the scandals, the child abuse and the poor response to it hit hard. But this Celtic Tiger economy of ours hit just as hard," said the Rev. Joseph Tynan, a parish priest in County Tipperary who is director of vocations in a western Irish diocese. "Vocations never thrive in an affluent society. There are too many other choices, opportunities and temptations."

Tynan graduated from Tipperary's seminary in 1980 with 25 classmates, but the seminary closed in 2002 after failing to attract a single new candidate. Today, just two of the diocese's 90 priests are under 30, according to Tynan, who said the church may need to make celibacy optional.

"There should be room for married clergy," said Tynan, who noted that even "John Paul II acknowledged that celibacy is a church rule rather than a divinely instituted rule."

For Donnelly, the aspirant priest, campus life is a reminder of the less-traveled path he's taking. The seminary is surrounded by a 6,000-student university and Maynooth pubs full of coeds doing what coeds do.

"You do see couples holding hands and going off to do things together, and you do find yourself thinking: I'd like to have that," Donnelly said. "I will miss not being able to have children — Santy (Santa Claus), the tooth fairy, the first day of school.

"But sacrifice is supposed to be hard. And I see the sense of the celibacy rule. I'm really supposed to be wedded to God, and the parish is my family."

"And I'm still going to make it to the pub," he added with a smile, "because that's where the people are. A good priest must be with his people."

By Shawn Pogatchnik
By Shawn Pogatchnik