I am a recent convert to the Church, having come in Easter 2006. I am a young Catholic who is intending to enter graduate school to study in theology. This blog mostly will not be of a theological nature, but occasionally will drift in that direction.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Enough Priests?

The supposed 'Priest shortage' is probably the liberals favorite rallying cry for married and female priests. They say that since we clearly don't have enough celibate men to go around, we should just open our nets and gather the rest of the world. While we're at it, we might as well invite Anglican priests to help, given that their ordination will be just as valid as the women's (and some of them will be women). They say that giving these people the priesthood will help an otherwise unbearable situation.

A couple of facts, however, give lie to their statements:
-In 1843 the diocese of Pittsburg had 12,000 members and 6 priests.
-In 1826 New York had 30,000 Catholics and 6 priests.
-In 1818 Baltimore had 100,000 Catholics and 52 priests.

It does not take a mathematician (which I am not) to do a little division: Pittsburg, 1 priest for 2,000 people; New York, 1 priest for 5,000 people; Baltimore, 1 priest for 2,000 people.

Yet these diocese not only survived but thrived, soon gaining many more priests and becoming the center of American Catholicism. And it would be well to note that they did it with celibate male priests.

"Just the facts."

2 Comments:

Blogger Randy said...

Hi Justin, where did you get your numbers?
Interesting stuff.

5:11 PM

 
Blogger J.M.R. Burgard said...

They came from a book called "A Survey of American Church History" by Newman C. Eberhardt, C.M.

6:00 PM

 

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