Small Increases in Priests and Seminarians Indicates Decline Overall in the Catholic Church

Official statistics released this weekend by the Vatican on the numbers of adult converts, priests and seminarians, show that the small growth in some areas is not matching the needs of the Church. Despite several media reports highlighting a modest growth in critical statistics in the Church, the numbers actually reveal a backwards trend.

Monsignor Ingacio Barreiro, head of the Rome office of Human Life International and an experienced UN diplomat, told LifeSiteNews.com that the numbers indicate not overall health and growth in the Catholic Church, but a steady decline that could be disastrous for the fight for life and family.

“The main defender,” Msgr. Barreiro said, “of life and family in the world is the Roman Catholic Church. So when we see statistical figures that create a doubt about the growth of the Church we are very concerned.”

The 2009 “Annuario Pontificio” (Pontifical Annual), that provides official statistical data on the Catholic Church for the year 2006-2007, was presented formally to the Pope this weekend before being disseminated throughout the world.

Over the past two years, it shows that the increase in the number of Catholics in the world has generally only matched the overall growth of the human population. The world’s population of Catholics stands at about 17.3 per cent of the total global population. In 2007, there were just under 1.147 billion baptized Catholics, compared with 1.131 billion in 2006. This growth, at 1.4 percent, is only 0.3 percent more than that of the growth of the human population, giving rise to questions on the effectiveness of the Church’s evangelization efforts.

While in Africa and Asia, the number of priests has dramatically increased, at 27.6 per cent and 21.2 per cent respectively, these increases do not balance out the loss of priests throughout the western world. Europe and Oceania record dramatic decreases of 6.8 per cent and 5.5 per cent in only one year. In addition, the growth of the priesthood in Africa and Asia is regularly outstripped by the steady rise in converts in those parts of the world.

Globally, the number of seminarians studying for the priesthood has increased by 0.4 percent, but this number does not match the 1.4 percent increase in the number of Catholics and will not come close to the numbers required to replace the losses the Church will soon experience when currently active priests die or retire. With the number of priests in the Americas remaining “stationary,” according to the Vatican report, and given the losses in Europe and Oceania, the overall picture is that of a shrinking priesthood in the west, relative to a small growth of the number of Catholics.

Msgr. Barreiro told LSN, “What growth there has been can be more or less be assimilated to the growth of the whole population of the world. This indicates that there is a very limited effort of evangelisation, particularly in the western world.

“In the meanwhile the Culture of Death is growing objectively and the election of Barack Obama in the US is a clear objective proof of that growth. In comparison with a very limited objective growth of the Church.”

Msgr. Barreiro pointed to the global 0.4 percent increase in the number of seminarians compared to the 1.4 increase of overall Catholics, saying that it is not growth but “a decrease.”

“It is not a step forward, but a trend of falling backwards,” he said.

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