AP - The Vatican says the number of priests worldwide is slowly but steadily rising.
The Holy See presented its yearbook filled with statistics to Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday.
Since 2000, the number of priests has gone up by several hundred each year. The two decades before that had witnessed a marked decline.
The percentage of Catholics worldwide remains stable, at about 17.3%.
In 2007, the last year statistics were available, Catholics numbered some 1.147 billion around the globe
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Lord’s descent into the underworld
At Matins/the Office of Readings on Holy Saturday the Church gives us this 'ancient homily', I find it incredibly moving, it is abou...
-
A French newspaper has reported Pope Francis, once Benedict dies, will abrogate Summorum Pontificum and handover Old Rite's celebrat... -
I was at the Verona Opera Festival when Summorum Pontificum was published but it wasn't until All Souls Day that I first attempted to s... -
In a conversation with our bishop recently, I thought he said that some parishes in the diocese were already using the new ICEL translations...
8 comments:
This is encouraging. May I suggest something which may propel this along in the UK ?
Three years ago, against huge opposition, a small (not stable) group asked for Eucharistic Adoration once a month. ONCE.A. MONTH. that's all. To pray specifially for vocations. We have no priests nor any vocations, you see. The answer for many months was "no".
After a year, it was permitted. All day every first saturday.
I am almost bursting with joy to tell you that we have 7 new MONASTIC vocations,(2 firm postulants) ALL started within the past eight months at our local abbey. And one at a nearby abbey.
After the uphill effort to get it off the gound, we could dance for joy.
Pray for these young men that they may persevere.
Ask your priest for a day of Eucharistic Adoration specifically for vocations in your area. If he says no, Accept it, Go away, wait a while, persevere, Go back again and ask. God wants to bless us. But only if we ask.
YEEE HAAAARGH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The video is headed:
"The 2009 edition of the pontifical yearbook was..."
Is this another caption competition?
This is indeed encouraging.
Deo Gratias.
Father, do you know if there is any further information on this, particularly a breakdown of numbers of priests and faithful by country or region? It would be interesting to see the patterns of growth in the Church across the world.
Matthaeus,
I wanted to know that.
Dear Rev. Fr., and Matthaeus,
This website
http://www.catholic-hierarchy.org/country/sc1.html
gives the number of priests and Cathlics in each country, and other data.
(sorry, don't know how to do the clicky linky thingy)
Unfortunately:
1) it doesn't show trends;
2) it doesn't give a source;
3) one can't tell how accurate it is.
For example it says that Great Britain has 4,787,000 Catholics. That can only be an estimate of the number of baptised Catholics, not the number of regular communicants.
A pity the Pontifical Yearbook cannot be put online.
This:
http://www.drgareth.info/CathStat.pdf
gives historical data for England & Wales, every 10 years from 1841 to 2001, based on the Catholic Directory.
This is part of what appeared in my local (Western Australia)Catholic newspaper this week:-
Rectors of Seminaries around Australia have been impressed with increasing student numbers across the country as the new study year began on February 9th.
St. Charles Seminary in Guilford (that's our Seminary) now has 22 resident students, including 8 new enrollments for 2009 and a further two completing their studies in Rome.
Sydney's Seminary of The Good Shepherd has 49 - more than double the 2001 figure, including 13 new enrollments this year.
Melbourne's Corpus Christi College also has 49 including 9 first -years. Parramatta's Holy Spirit started last year with 11 students and there are a further five still discerning with the local vocations director.
Vianney College in Wagga Wagga NSW, has a record 22 students currently in residence, including five new enrollments this year.
The two Missionary Seminaries of the Neocatechumenal Way in Australia - Redemptoris Mater in Morley 19 (here in Perth) and 20 in Sydney, with students from Australia, the US, Africa, Europe and Asia.
And, I would like to add to Bernadette's observation. The list of churches in the Archdiocese of Perth with Eucharistic Adoration, fills a whole page in The Record.
There are four parishes with PERMANENT 24hr a day Adoration.
JARay
Such are the fruits of accurate catechesis, including edifying liturgy, in those countries which have them, and which alone, apart from islands of the same elsewhere, are experiencing this abundance. Truly the Spirit of Vatican II.
However, following on from some other comments, after a day including both Eucharistic Adoration and the Stations of the Cross, how I feel for my brethren in Ukraine who desire to retain both of those devotions, as well as the Holy Rosary.
Apparently, these three forms of spirituality, all very long-established among Ukrainians, are “Latin”, with no part in a Byzantine Rite Catholic Church whose self-prostration to the Orthodox (who occupied her churches during the Soviet period) does not preclude very good relations with Buddhists and Hare Krishnas.
Photian Monopatrism, and denial of the Petrine Office even in principle? Fine. Nirvana? Great. Bhakti? Marvellous. But Eucharistic Adoration, or the Stations of the Cross, or the Holy Rosary? Any of that carry on and you are looking at having to send your young men to Warsaw to be ordained (in the Latin Rite, of course) by none other than Richard Williamson, with the inevitable excommunications to follow.
There is never any excuse for schism.
But the wound is not felt only on one side.
Post a Comment