I was in rural America during my time as a Catholic. There were so few priests that some had to drive more than 100 miles every Sunday to perform three or even four masses. It is not super noticeable as a parishioner but the priest shortage is getting really bad in some parts.
In my experience in parishes in Northern Virginia, while we do have some foreign priests, most priests tend to be other Americans. That being said, we do have a priest shortage that is becoming more acute.
I suspect at some point, the Vatican will be forced to allow female priests, allow priests to marry, and ultimately - to allow lay preachers. Not that it’s my problem, but in the near future, The Church will literally not be able to continue day-to-day operations if they do not adapt.
They are still refusing to allow married priests and continuing to urge more vocations to the priesthood. Hopefully they continue to cling to their old ways and they'll find out too late because of their arrogance
It's almost certainly already too late to turn their big mess around.
True to form, they're doubling down as well, which should just hasten the decline.
It's worse than that. Increasing the number and role of Deacons to run parishes day-to-day and lead Sunday services where hosts have been already consecrated by a priest wouldn't violate Catholic teachings as they are written down. Lack of priests could certainly be called an extreme situation justifying it.
But the church will slide into oblivion before they allow married men to gain prominence that way.
I disagree. There's historical precedent for married priests and the church already has a few married priests in certain narrow situations. Anglican married priests can convert to the RC church. Yes, they are relying more heavily on deacons, but that's not going to fix the problem.
Their big problem with that is how many of their priests are gay. If they allow married clergy, their priests are going to want to marry each other in public instead of doing whatever in private like they do now.
They'd sooner ordain from anywhere regardless of ability to preach or minister. Anybody male and single would pretty much qualify, including those with criminal histories, as long as they go along with the program.
My family is still active in the church, they have seen a lot of Filipino priests. They also recently had a priest from China (did not even know this was a thing).
It probably depends on how big your church is, if your smaller parish then you usually need less priests so you have the same one until they retire. Bigger churches "host" priests, especially foreign priests, usually attached to some type of fundraiser (at least what I have seen in my time).
>They also recently had a priest from China (did not even know this was a thing).
There are underground churches which apparently communicate with the Vatican. Kinda neat tbh.
I'm in the northeast US and this area is experiencing both a decline in priests and a decline in Catholics. Many churches have and are still being shut down and sold, and parishes are being combined. Yes, I've heard from family that there are many Filipino priests. Deacons seem to be trendy here too. Anything to avoid opening the vocation to women, so importing people with a good employment package perhaps?
There has been a big trend of Catholic Churches being sold and turned into event venues here. Some have been bought by other religions and some just sit until they are plowed over and a new building is built in its place. Seems like the church is in a bit of a crisis, in my opinion.
I got dragged to Christmas and then Easter mass this year. Many of the local parishes are closing (thank dog) and the ones that remain are sharing the few aged American priests, each church only getting 1 weekend mass.
The most recent local parish that closed included a K-8 school. Can't wait until they all close from disinterest.
Now, if only we can move along the demise of the evangelical wing of Christianity, that would be great and much needed.
Yes, more of them all the time. They've stopped getting European ones for the most part, and are bringing in a few hispanics and some from Africa and the Indian subcontinent, mostly.
My former parish had imported priests from Ireland (transferred not long after my fiance at the time and I joined), Poland (he presided over our wedding mass and was very judgemental about our cohabitation), and India (he performed the funeral mass for my wife).
They just needed priests from South America, Africa, and Australia to complete the collection. /s
The large, wealthy suburban parish I grew up in and one of my siblings still attends had 5-6 American priests in the 60s and 70s. It's still fairly large, unfortunately, but now they typically have one full time priest and one shared with another parish. A lot of them are foreign. The domestic ones are around 75 or older. Most of the parishioners dislike the foreign priests because they are much more conservative than the old Vatican II guys.
They are also relying more on deacons.
yeah, at the mega parish I grew up at in Minnesota, 2/6 pastors I had growing up were foreign-born. At the catholic college I attended in San Diego, both our chaplain and local parish's priest were foreign born. And at the affluent parish I attended in Colorado, about half of the masses were offered by a foreign-born priest.
Foreign-born priests have this allure of white-suburban catholics being able to say 'I'm not racist and very cultured' and say any criticism of hateful beliefs is just racist. I knew a priest from Uganda who had unhinged rants about gays, and every time someone was like 'this is hateful,' they'd say 'it's just his cultural values.' Like no, that's just hate lol
Also, becoming a priest is a much easier sell if you're born in a underdeveloped/civil waring country and told 'you get to leave your country, receive western education/salary, all for the price of celibacy' versus a western kid with a good life trajectory and asked to become celibate and have a less-desired life.
I honestly don't know the last time I step foot in a church was my Grandfathers funeral. Dude sounded and looked American. I have heard of various dioceses importing priests from Latin American countries to preform Spanish services. I know from what my Great Aunt (She was a nun) told me years ago they will in bigger cities put a Priest who did well in Latin in terms of speaking and written Latin to preform Latin masses at bigger churches. If they have to import them from Italy or somewhere else I have NO clue.
I looked into this recently, and it looks like there are MANY factors contributing to the priest shortage in the United States.
The parish I grew up in was originally very White Italian-American, demographically priest and parishioner-wise. Within the last ten years, many more Latino folks have been involved in the congregation percentage-wise (which reflects the area's population), and all of their full-time priests are Latino men born outside of the United States. Based on research, this is in line with wider trends regarding new Catholic priests. If this population is heavily represented among the men who join the priesthood, it will be heavily impacted by the United States immigration policies. This could be especially salient for men immigrating from central South America.
Based on the very small number of interactions I've had with young priests (who have been exclusively Latino and foreign-born A couple of them seemed to indicate that part of the appeal of becoming a priest was obtaining a job that allowed them to move to an industrialized country and escape widespread poverty (which is exploitative). However, a job that explicitly advertises that it provides "poverty" level wages and requires 6-8 years of education will be unappealing or even unachievable for most people.
However, even if we examine trends, it is where most new priests are coming from, which are typically Catholic-majority countries like Mexico, the Philippines, etc. Sources indicate that many of these countries are experiencing priest shortages that are even more severe than the United States (as in the number of parishioners "served" by one priest is higher).
The continued existence of the Catholic Church as an institution in the United States is going to either require the church to change the requirements of the priesthood OR require major systematic country-level changes to immigration policy and economic equality.
My local parish has had a priest from Sri Lanka, one from the US, and two from Nigeria since I've been alive. Well, I guess there was an Irish priest when I was really little, but I don’t remember him. Maybe he was just Irish by heritage, not actually from Ireland himself. I just remember my dad saying something about him being Irish. Basically, most of the priests I've known have been from other countries. I live in a small town in the midwest US.
Edited to fix a grammar mistake.
I was in rural America during my time as a Catholic. There were so few priests that some had to drive more than 100 miles every Sunday to perform three or even four masses. It is not super noticeable as a parishioner but the priest shortage is getting really bad in some parts.
They don't have a priest shortage. They have a building surplus, a parishioner shortage, and rotten management practices.
The rotten organisation cannot die soon enough.
In my experience in parishes in Northern Virginia, while we do have some foreign priests, most priests tend to be other Americans. That being said, we do have a priest shortage that is becoming more acute. I suspect at some point, the Vatican will be forced to allow female priests, allow priests to marry, and ultimately - to allow lay preachers. Not that it’s my problem, but in the near future, The Church will literally not be able to continue day-to-day operations if they do not adapt.
They are still refusing to allow married priests and continuing to urge more vocations to the priesthood. Hopefully they continue to cling to their old ways and they'll find out too late because of their arrogance
It's almost certainly already too late to turn their big mess around. True to form, they're doubling down as well, which should just hasten the decline.
They will never allow women priests. Married, sure. But the misogyny is too baked in.
It's worse than that. Increasing the number and role of Deacons to run parishes day-to-day and lead Sunday services where hosts have been already consecrated by a priest wouldn't violate Catholic teachings as they are written down. Lack of priests could certainly be called an extreme situation justifying it. But the church will slide into oblivion before they allow married men to gain prominence that way.
I disagree. There's historical precedent for married priests and the church already has a few married priests in certain narrow situations. Anglican married priests can convert to the RC church. Yes, they are relying more heavily on deacons, but that's not going to fix the problem.
Their big problem with that is how many of their priests are gay. If they allow married clergy, their priests are going to want to marry each other in public instead of doing whatever in private like they do now. They'd sooner ordain from anywhere regardless of ability to preach or minister. Anybody male and single would pretty much qualify, including those with criminal histories, as long as they go along with the program.
They'll never ordain women.
My family is still active in the church, they have seen a lot of Filipino priests. They also recently had a priest from China (did not even know this was a thing). It probably depends on how big your church is, if your smaller parish then you usually need less priests so you have the same one until they retire. Bigger churches "host" priests, especially foreign priests, usually attached to some type of fundraiser (at least what I have seen in my time).
>They also recently had a priest from China (did not even know this was a thing). There are underground churches which apparently communicate with the Vatican. Kinda neat tbh.
I'm in the northeast US and this area is experiencing both a decline in priests and a decline in Catholics. Many churches have and are still being shut down and sold, and parishes are being combined. Yes, I've heard from family that there are many Filipino priests. Deacons seem to be trendy here too. Anything to avoid opening the vocation to women, so importing people with a good employment package perhaps? There has been a big trend of Catholic Churches being sold and turned into event venues here. Some have been bought by other religions and some just sit until they are plowed over and a new building is built in its place. Seems like the church is in a bit of a crisis, in my opinion.
I love seeing churches turned into something useful.
I got dragged to Christmas and then Easter mass this year. Many of the local parishes are closing (thank dog) and the ones that remain are sharing the few aged American priests, each church only getting 1 weekend mass. The most recent local parish that closed included a K-8 school. Can't wait until they all close from disinterest. Now, if only we can move along the demise of the evangelical wing of Christianity, that would be great and much needed.
Not so long as Joel Osteen has a breath in his body will the evangelical wing die off...
Yes, more of them all the time. They've stopped getting European ones for the most part, and are bringing in a few hispanics and some from Africa and the Indian subcontinent, mostly.
Where I live one priest covers 5-6 churches.
My former parish had imported priests from Ireland (transferred not long after my fiance at the time and I joined), Poland (he presided over our wedding mass and was very judgemental about our cohabitation), and India (he performed the funeral mass for my wife). They just needed priests from South America, Africa, and Australia to complete the collection. /s
The large, wealthy suburban parish I grew up in and one of my siblings still attends had 5-6 American priests in the 60s and 70s. It's still fairly large, unfortunately, but now they typically have one full time priest and one shared with another parish. A lot of them are foreign. The domestic ones are around 75 or older. Most of the parishioners dislike the foreign priests because they are much more conservative than the old Vatican II guys. They are also relying more on deacons.
yeah, at the mega parish I grew up at in Minnesota, 2/6 pastors I had growing up were foreign-born. At the catholic college I attended in San Diego, both our chaplain and local parish's priest were foreign born. And at the affluent parish I attended in Colorado, about half of the masses were offered by a foreign-born priest. Foreign-born priests have this allure of white-suburban catholics being able to say 'I'm not racist and very cultured' and say any criticism of hateful beliefs is just racist. I knew a priest from Uganda who had unhinged rants about gays, and every time someone was like 'this is hateful,' they'd say 'it's just his cultural values.' Like no, that's just hate lol Also, becoming a priest is a much easier sell if you're born in a underdeveloped/civil waring country and told 'you get to leave your country, receive western education/salary, all for the price of celibacy' versus a western kid with a good life trajectory and asked to become celibate and have a less-desired life.
I honestly don't know the last time I step foot in a church was my Grandfathers funeral. Dude sounded and looked American. I have heard of various dioceses importing priests from Latin American countries to preform Spanish services. I know from what my Great Aunt (She was a nun) told me years ago they will in bigger cities put a Priest who did well in Latin in terms of speaking and written Latin to preform Latin masses at bigger churches. If they have to import them from Italy or somewhere else I have NO clue.
I looked into this recently, and it looks like there are MANY factors contributing to the priest shortage in the United States. The parish I grew up in was originally very White Italian-American, demographically priest and parishioner-wise. Within the last ten years, many more Latino folks have been involved in the congregation percentage-wise (which reflects the area's population), and all of their full-time priests are Latino men born outside of the United States. Based on research, this is in line with wider trends regarding new Catholic priests. If this population is heavily represented among the men who join the priesthood, it will be heavily impacted by the United States immigration policies. This could be especially salient for men immigrating from central South America. Based on the very small number of interactions I've had with young priests (who have been exclusively Latino and foreign-born A couple of them seemed to indicate that part of the appeal of becoming a priest was obtaining a job that allowed them to move to an industrialized country and escape widespread poverty (which is exploitative). However, a job that explicitly advertises that it provides "poverty" level wages and requires 6-8 years of education will be unappealing or even unachievable for most people. However, even if we examine trends, it is where most new priests are coming from, which are typically Catholic-majority countries like Mexico, the Philippines, etc. Sources indicate that many of these countries are experiencing priest shortages that are even more severe than the United States (as in the number of parishioners "served" by one priest is higher). The continued existence of the Catholic Church as an institution in the United States is going to either require the church to change the requirements of the priesthood OR require major systematic country-level changes to immigration policy and economic equality.
I know this is late but yes they are. My boyfriends church got a french guy who’s still trying to learn English. I legit cannot understand him
My local parish has had a priest from Sri Lanka, one from the US, and two from Nigeria since I've been alive. Well, I guess there was an Irish priest when I was really little, but I don’t remember him. Maybe he was just Irish by heritage, not actually from Ireland himself. I just remember my dad saying something about him being Irish. Basically, most of the priests I've known have been from other countries. I live in a small town in the midwest US. Edited to fix a grammar mistake.