The situation of “the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few” is growing steadily in the US as the number of Catholic priests is on a high decline according to the latest report of Vocation Ministry, a group inspiring and promoting vocations in the US.
The report published in 2022 titled “State of Priestly Vocations in the United States” presented findings from an Analysis of Diocesan Data from 2015-2021 with a focus on life, prayer, and ministry; and what sustains and challenges them in the US.
According to the report about 3,496 parishes are without parish priests or resident pastors. Previous statistics pointed out that between 1965 and 2012, the number of USA parishes without a priest climbed from 549 and has since risen steadily to 3,496 in the last 10 years.
The declining number of priests in parish ministry is producing a marked increase in the number of ‘priestless’ parishes and thereby increasing the number of lay people per priest.
The report however indicates that the Catholic population in the US is increasing steadily.
The report further assessed the health of the church in the US by conducting a healthy status check on all dioceses by drawing data from the official United States of America Catholic Directory.
The report based the health status categorization of the dioceses based on four defined criteria, known as Healthy Criteria Points:
- Ordaining 1 new priest for every 100,000 Catholics in the diocese per year
- Diocese has enough seminarians to support ordinations needed, determined in point #1
- Fewer than 15% of priests are extern priests (not incardinated into a diocese, e.g., missionary
- priest)
- Fewer than 15% of parishes without a resident priest
Based on the criteria points, 13 Dioceses were identified as healthy, having met, or exceeded all the criteria, some of these dioceses are Covington, Kentucky; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Lafayette-in-Indiana, Indiana; Lafayette, Louisiana; Lake Charles, Louisiana; Lansing, Michigan; Lexington, Kentucky.
36 Dioceses are reported as having Borderline Healthy status and needing improvement in one of the four above criteria whiles 76 Dioceses were captured as Maintaining, needing improvement in two of the four above criteria.
52 Dioceses were listed as Unhealthy using an Unhealthy Criteria Points; a Diocese not ordaining 1 new priest for every 100,000 Catholics in the diocese per year; a Diocese does not have enough seminarians to support ordinations needed, determined in point #1; More than 50% of priests are extern priests (not incardinated into a diocese, e.g., missionary priest); More than 50% of parishes without a resident priest.
The report however indicated that the report did not take into account the retirement rate of priests, as that number is not published.