Priests in Ireland

markopantelic

Just curious how many are left?

robindch

According to the CSO, the last few sets of figures for "Persons, males and females aged 15 years and over at work, classified by occupational group" where the occupational group is "Religious occupations" are as follows:

1991 - 9,007
1996 - 6,441
2002 - 3,903
2006 - 3,849

While the number of priests being produced by the nation's seminaries has picked up very slightly in recent years, it's still nowhere near replacement level. As far as I'm aware, the only religious institutions which are still growing in any appreciable way is the one Benedictine monastery in Limerick, and various evangelical protestant churches.

Fluffybums

Would allowing women priests and/or priests to marry and have a family make the priesthood more popular?

Mickeroo

Fluffybums wrote: »

Would allowing women priests and/or priests to marry and have a family make the priesthood more popular?

Undoubtedly!

Splendour

Fluffybums wrote: »

Would allowing women priests and/or priests to marry and have a family make the priesthood more popular?

Reinstating would be a better word. In the early church priests were allowed to marry. Not sure if this would make a huge difference if they brought it back but it is biblically correct to allow priests to marry.

Mickeroo

Splendour wrote: »

Reinstating would be a better word. In the early church priests were allowed to marry. Not sure if this would make a huge difference if they brought it back but it is biblically correct to allow priests to marry.

Do you think that maybe the church dont want their priests starting families for financial reasons rather than religious?

Personally i feel if priests never had to suppress their basic human needs in the first place child abuse would never have been as big an issue as it is now.

Splendour

Mickeroo wrote: »

Do you think that maybe the church dont want their priests starting families for financial reasons rather than religious?

Possibly, although the COI seem to manage quite well...

Phototoxin

wimmenz cannot be priests but priests can marry under current theology. They just aren't allowed basically. It could be overruled quite easily.

robindch

Catholic priests can be married -- the CofE lost a few married priests to the Vatican after the CofE began ordaining women priests; married catholic priests are not uncommon in certain parts of Africa and some other parts of the developing world, and the entire Uniate Church of Ukraine (ritually, pretty much Orthodox, but owing allegiance to the Vatican) lets its priests marry, according to one of the terms of the accession treaty.

Phototoxin

Roman Catholic priests cannot get married, they can as you say be married, but cannot become bishops afaik. Other Catholic priests can get married yes

santing

Are not all called to be priests? Men, women and children?

From the catechism:

784 On entering the People of God through faith and Baptism, one receives a share in this people's unique, priestly vocation: "Christ the Lord, high priest taken from among men, has made this new people 'a kingdom of priests to God, his Father.' the baptized, by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood."
941 Lay people share in Christ's priesthood: ever more united with him, they exhibit the grace of Baptism and Confirmation in all dimensions of their personal family, social and ecclesial lives, and so fulfill the call to holiness addressed to all the baptized.
1141 The celebrating assembly is the community of the baptized who, "by regeneration and the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are consecrated to be a spiritual house and a holy priesthood, that . . . they may offer spiritual sacrifices."9 This "common priesthood" is that of Christ the sole priest, in which all his members participate:
1546 Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church "a kingdom, priests for his God and Father."20 The whole community of believers is, as such, priestly. the faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his own vocation, in Christ's mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are "consecrated to be . . . a holy priesthood."

Ultravid

Mickeroo wrote: »

Do you think that maybe the church dont want their priests starting families for financial reasons rather than religious?

Personally i feel if priests never had to suppress their basic human needs in the first place child abuse would never have been as big an issue as it is now.

Ordained Priests of the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church are not permitted to marry.

The discipline of celibacy is linked to the teachings of Jesus and is part of the spirituality of the priest since he is married not to one woman, but the the Church. He acts in persona Christi.

We don't need more priests, we need holy priests.

dvpower

I presume that married Roman Catholic priests (e.g. those who transferred over from the COI) don't have to become celibate?

Ultravid

dvpower wrote: »

I presume that married Roman Catholic priests (e.g. those who transferred over from the COI) don't have to become celibate?

The clergy who transferred from Anglicanism will have obtained permission from Rome. They will have been granted a special favour - the rule of celibacy will have been waivered, but should the wife die, they may not remarry.

Here is a good short piece on the issue:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/MARPRIE.htm

philologos

robindch, there is still a healthy output from the Church of Ireland Theological Institute, and in St Patricks Maynooth I would say that there are roughly 70 people studying for the priesthood right now given that there are 10 in first year now.

Ultravid

robindch wrote: »

While the number of priests being produced by the nation's seminaries has picked up very slightly in recent years, it's still nowhere near replacement level. As far as I'm aware, the only religious institutions which are still growing in any appreciable way is the one Benedictine monastery in Limerick, and various evangelical protestant churches.

The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, who have a house in Limerick, are growing and have very healthy vocations.

Those orders which remain loyal to the Church, the Pope, and the Magisterium, are those with flourishing vocations. Those who stray from the truth are dying.

An interesting article is here: http://www.ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/PRCURTIS.HTM

It was written by an American Archbishop of the Catholic Church.

Some pertinent extracts, with my emphases, though I recommend you read the article in full:

....

Negative Agendas

It seems to me that the vocation "crisis" is precipitated and continued by people who want to change the Church's agenda, by people who do not support orthodox candidates loyal to the magisterial teaching of the Pope and bishops, and by people who actually discourage viable candidates from seeking priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines these ministries.
I am personally aware of certain vocation directors, vocation teams and evaluation boards who turn away candidates who do not support the possibility of ordaining women or who defend the Church's teaching about artificial birth control, or who exhibit a strong piety toward certain devotions, such as the rosary. When there is a determined effort to discourage orthodox candidates from priesthood and religious life, then the vocation shortage which results is caused not by a lack of vocations but by deliberate attitudes and policies which deter certain viable candidates. And the same people who precipitate a decline in vocations by their negative actions call for the ordination of married men and women to replace the vocations they have discouraged. They have a death wish for ordained priesthood and vowed religious life as the Church defines them. They undermine the vocation ministry they are supposed to champion.


....



Marked Increases in Vocations

An article in the Catholic World Report (May 1995) by Michael Flach analyzes the remarkable increase in vocations to priesthood in the Arlington, Virginia diocese. Father James Gould, diocesan vocation director, explains the reasons for their success: unswerving allegiance to the Pope and the magisterial teaching; perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament in parishes, with an emphasis on praying for vocations; and the strong effort by a significant number of diocesan priests who extend themselves to help young men and women remain open to the Lord's will in their lives.


....



Positive response of young people

I find young people everywhere who want to be Church with Pope John Paul. They want to know what the Church teaches through its magisterium. They want to be part of the unity of the Church and not caught up in dissent and disunity. They are willing to listen to the call to priesthood and religious life and lay ministry in the Church, and they want to be supported by people in their response to that call.
A recent work in the sociology of religion by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in our Religious Economy, makes the point that the more a religious organization compromises with society and the world, blurring its identity and modifying its teaching and ethics, the more it will decline. "Religious organizations are stronger to the degree that they impose significant costs in terms of sacrifice and even stigma upon their members." If these findings are true for religion in general, they are certainly true for vocations to priesthood and religious life in particular.


....

The silly season of disobedience, dissent, and nonsense, immediately following the closure of the Second Vatican Council is coming to a close, and normal service will resume shortly. After every Ecumenical Council of the Church there is a period of adjustment, and perhaps even crisis, as in this latest case, but the Church continues its mission. Things are getting better. Slowly. We will see an authentic implementation of the Second vatican Council in the Church and the world, as the Council Fathers intended.

prinz

Mickeroo wrote: »

Personally i feel if priests never had to suppress their basic human needs in the first place child abuse would never have been as big an issue as it is now.

If that was the reason, how have Catholic priests managed in many other countries without resorting to child abuse?