What to Do About the Priest Shortage

Hi, (pardon the length)

Unfortunately for all you analysts out there, the Catholic Church has, since, its inception, defied all analysis based on the laws of nature (that is to say, roundly, common sense) because the Church is fundamentally a supernatural organization.

That is, its origin, goals, and even its methods are also almost entirely supra-sensible (that is, they cannot be completely seen or fully understood). The action of the Church is seen through the symbols it uses (for instance, in the sacraments) and the physical acts of charity it performs, but, and this is where almost all commentators and analysts go wrong, the "work" of the Church is not in the symbols or physical acts. It is wholly other, the physical acts (even the very small charities of day-to-day life for a good Catholic) are really exterior signs to a vastly deeper spiritual reality - the actions of Divine Providence. Quite awesome stuff, really, that we participate in.

So, given that, then, the external of a priest shortage is really not a "problem" as such.

To quantify it a little better, think of it this way: some of the most Catholic countries operate with a ratio of 1:7,500 priest to laity. In fact, in many areas, that number could easily be effectively 5-10x that, since priests tend to congregate (no pun intended).

America's average is 1:4,700. The very large Archdiocese of LA has 1:12,000. But, if we look at the smallish Diocese of Lincoln, NE, among the most conservative in the country, the number is closer to 1:737. Both the size of a Diocese and its orthodoxy (which are themselves related) seem to have some impact on the ratio of priests to laity - when you hit the coasts, the bulk numbers go up and the orthodoxy goes down, making the priest shortage seem that much worse.

N.B. that Mass attendance (especially on the less-orthodox Coasts) is abysmal. So, if you consider the number of priests compared to the number of good Catholics (those people who go to weekly Mass which, along with yearly confession, yearly reception of the Eucharist, and keeping the fasts, are the hallmarks of a non-lapsed Catholic), you don't see quite as dramatic a drop. So, on a more mature analysis, we did seem to have a notable hiccup in the ratio of good priests to good Catholics after Vatican II, but it seems to me its getting back on track, I think. (Thus, what we actually need is to get the huge population of lapsed Catholics laity to become actually Catholic - I surmise this would increase the vocations ratio, too, which I guestimate is a geometric relation)

But, truly, all those raw numbers don't matter - if we had hardly any non-lapsed Catholics and only a few holy Priests, that would be, for the Church-qua-Church, okay too (lousy for the rest of you, I think, but free will is a difficult thing). Try to think more along the lines of Henry V: "If we are mark'd to die, we are enow / To do our country loss; and if to live,/ The fewer men, the greater share of honour./ God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more."

Holy Mother Church, through every age and in every time has ever been active, even when it was only a single old man ready to offer his confused boy-child as a sacrifice. Or, just a couple of women and a boy at the foot of the cross of a Son of Man, dead, with his friends gone, after being unjustly crucified for blasphemy and treason against a worldly king.

Somehow, even when that's all we've got, it ends up working out.

Curious, that.

Now, I'd love to see more men going to become priests, but not at any price: certainly not at the price of proper teaching on any point, especially proper teaching-in-action. Celibacy is a sign of the Kingdom, and it is one of those teachings-in-action. That said, the discipline of celibacy for a priest is _also_ a good barrier to entry for people who aren't really serious about this stuff, for whom it is a psychological need or power trip rather than a loving, wholly self-giving response to a call from God. There are many such barriers on the path to priesthood - on purpose. Deus vult.

Oh, yes. I'm not only a client, but I'm soaking in it: I'm a Roman Catholic Diocesan seminarian, hoping one day that Holy Mother Church will call me to share Her sacrifices, Her pains and sufferings (and, perhaps, if I should merit it, Her joys), offering as a personal sacrifice the enormous good that is the possibility of a virtuous wife and the privilege of raising children and a great deal of other freedoms to do other perfectly good things, in order to better pursue God's work: that I may one day become a holy Priest, configured and united mystically to Our Lord, to stand as a living sign of the Kingdom of Heaven, so that all may "repent and believe", and have "life more abundantly" here, and "life eternal" there. To, as they say, put my money where my mouth is - or, perhaps, to put my heart where my treasure is.

(Oh, yes, and so I can get into heaven, too - we are all called to be holy, if I am called to be a priestly Father in the Roman Rite, the path to holiness is celibacy, respect and obedience to the Bishop, and certain prayer. If I am called to be a father-father, the path to holiness is marital chastity, fidelity to spouse and children (and a serious dose of prayer). If I'm called to religious life, the path is chastity, obedience, poverty and regular prayer. Seriously, for good Catholics, one way of looking at it is that life isn't t necessarily _all_ that different between the vocations - much, in fact, is the same. None of them are primarily about what one does with oneself, but rather for others and for God. That said, the differences are quite important, and good in themselves. Viva la differance!)

J of MA 12:24AM April 23, 2008