No vocations crisis

South African Catholics who rely on the secular press for information about their Church may well feel despondent regarding the much-trumpeted vocations crisis.

Within a few weeks of one another, South Africa’s most influential secular weeklies, the Mail & Guardian and the Sunday Times, published reports outlining the decline of vocations to the priesthood in Britain, presenting a picture of a Church that is running out of priests.

Both newspapers failed to incorporate a reference to the state of vocations in the South African Church, leaving the reader with the idea that the vocations crisis is universal. And if the crisis is perceived to be universal, the coded message implies, then there must be something seriously amiss within the Catholic Church.

The attentive Southern Cross reader will know, of course, that the number of vocations in South Africa’s Church is healthy. Several seminaries in this country have had to expand to accommodate students.

One must presume that the newspapers ran the British reports in the misguided belief that the vocation shortage is universal.

It is true that in Europe and North America the average age of priests is increasing, and vocations are indeed on the decrease. In some regions, parishes are closing down or are being consolidated–not always because there are no priests available, but because church attendance is shrinking.

Yet it may be inexact to even speak of a crisis.

Worldwide statistics show that vocations to the priesthood are not in decline. They also challenge the notion, adopted by many traditionalists, that vocations have taken a massive knock since Vatican II.

In 1961, the year before Vatican II began, there were 404082 priests worldwide. In 2001, there were 405067, marking a small increase. In that time the church in Europe and North America recorded a decline of about 20%–a sharp drop, but not a crisis as Church attendance in those regions has also declined.

Meanwhile, the numbers of priests in Africa increased by 60%, in Latin America by 68%, and in Asia by 57%.

The decrease in vocations to the priesthood in Europe and North America can be explained partly with reference to increasing secularisation and the attendant decline of Christianity there.

Prosperity may have much to do with this. When societies prosper economically, the theory goes, they tend to consider God unnecessary. Conversely, societies that are poor tend to keep hold of religious faith. Societies produce priests, and the priesthood reflects the society in which it functions–hence the surge in vocations in what is often called the Third World, and the decline in the so-called First World.

Mandatory celibacy, so often cited as a pivotal reason for the drop in vocations in the West, may play a less significant role in deterring young men from the priesthood, as churches that consent to married clergy are encountering similar difficulties in attracting suitable clerical candidates.

In an ironic reversal of missionary movement, priests from Africa and Asia are increasingly called to Europe to supply there.

We may be reassured that the Church is not running out of priests, as the secular media would have it. But all is not well. Catholics should not adopt a position of apathy, but must continue to promote and pray for vocations throughout the Church.