What Vocations Crisis?

Concerned that the Catholic Church is whithering away? Since 1979, the number of vocations to the Catholic priesthood has almost doubled, and the trend is continuing to rise.

In 1978, when John Paul II was elected, there were 63,882 major seminarians in the world. In 2001 there were 112,982.

“Never in the history of the Church have we had so many seminarians studying philosophy and theology,” Archbishop Ternyak said.

“What is beautiful is that these vocations are more stable than they were 30 years ago,” he said. “The percentage of seminarians who gave up this path was 9.09% at the beginning of the pontificate; while at present this percentage has decreased to 6.93%.”

The Vatican official noted that “14% of present parishes — 216,736 at the end of 2001 — were created in the last 30 years. And the proportion of priests expressly dedicated to parish ministry has grown notably; 212,095 parishes are managed directly by a priest, while in 1978 there were only 200,295.”

Outstanding!