Help Wanted

On a special Sunday of prayer for religious vocations last week, Pope Paul VI told a crowd in St. Peter's Square that "the church has great need, quantitatively and qualitatively, of brothers and sisters who will give their lives for the kingdom of God." The Pope's plea came two days after four curial cardinals held a rare press conference to cite statistics showing how severe is the shortage of priests in the church. "Why conceal the fact," said Gabriel Cardinal Garrone, head of the Congregation for Catholic Education, "that our concern is keen and profound?"

Church authorities estimate that ideally there should be one priest for every 800 Catholics; worldwide, the ratio is now about one for every 1,300 Catholics--and it is getting worse. In 1966, the number of Catholics increased by 11,000,000; but the church gained only 5,000 new priests. Major crisis countries, said the cardinals, include France, Spain, Brazil, Argentina, and the U.S. According to the 1968 Official Catholic Directory, the nation's total of priests last year decreased by 89--the first drop since at least 1940.

What especially worries church officials is an even more startling decline in seminary enrollment, which the cardinals rather gratuitously attributed to today's "atmosphere of materialism and naturalism." In the past decade, 45 French dioceses have had to close down their major seminaries for lack of applicants, and even in strongly Catholic Spain the dropout rate among candidates to the priesthood is nearly 50%. U.S. seminary enrollment last year fell by 5,541--more than twice the decline of 1966.

One potential way of compensating for the priestly shortage is by the ordination of both married and single men to a permanent order of deacons, a proposal adopted by the Second Vatican Council. Deacons, under church law, can perform most of the functions of a priest, except for celebrating Mass and hearing confessions. So far, the hierarchies of 24 countries--including the U.S.--have requested permission from Rome to ordain married men to the diaconate. Last week in Cologne, the first five candidates for this office were ordained; 110 more are in training in Germany alone.

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