CATHOLIC
CHURCH
Homosexuals and the Catholic priesthood
A controversial
Vatican document restricting the admission of gay men to the priesthood, set
for official release on Nov. 29, was obtained by an Italian news agency, Adista,
and published on Nov. 22. Other news agencies confirmed the authenticity of
the document, which says that the church "cannot admit to the seminary
and the sacred orders those who practice homosexuality, present deeply-rooted
homosexual tendencies or support so-called gay culture."
There is much debate
over what those three conditions mean, and especially what is meant by "deeply-rooted
homosexual tendencies." Some Vatican-watchers argue that the statement
amounts to an outright ban on gay men entering the priesthood. Others predict
more of a "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy, leaving room for authorities
to screen out candidates who they feel are not appropriate. Another view is
that the policy will force gay men who want to be priests to either lie about
their orientation or repress it. The statement will not affect men already ordained.
The policy was
spurred by the clergy sexual abuse crisis that erupted in 2002. Experts say
that homosexual men are not more likely to molest than heterosexuals and that
heterosexual abusers may choose boys as victims because of their accessibility.
Nevertheless, some critics of gay priests link homosexuality and abuse and see
a ban on gays as a way of preventing more abuse.
The policy on homosexuals
in the priesthood is being released during a Vatican-mandated inspection of
all 229 American seminaries and institutions that prepare priests. The inspection,
known as an apostolic visitation, focuses on two issues: "the need for
fidelity to the church's teaching, especially in the area of morality, and the
need for a deeper study of criteria of suitability of candidates to the priesthood."
Sexuality is just one area of the inspection, but homosexuality is a big undercurrent
of the investigation.
(The document
obtained by Adista is in Italian. An unofficial English translation of the document
by Robert Mickens, Rome correspondent for The Tablet of London, was posted
at a popular Catholic blog, Whispers
in the Loggia. Catholic World News, an online news service, also has an
English
translation. Various news agencies have used their own translations for
key phrases.)
The Vatican inspection
of U.S. seminaries and the focus on the sexual behavior of priests was triggered
by the clergy sexual abuse scandal, which is considered the biggest crisis in
the history of the Catholic Church in America. American Catholics are the largest
single U.S. denomination, with about 65 million baptized members, nearly one-quarter
of the population. The scandal has had implications for other denominations
and faiths, too. It has affected how pastors are trained and how they conduct
their ministry.
The visitation
and statements on homosexuality by some church leaders have caused concern among
priests, gay and straight, who fear the impact on vocations and the effect on
gay men already in the priesthood. One Catholic leader described the situation
as bad for morale. Given the sharp decline in the number of priests in recent
decades, and the fact that some estimate that as much as a third of the priesthood
may be gay, the fallout at the parish level could be great. Some argue that
reducing the number of gay priests would encourage more heterosexuals to join
the priesthood. Others worry that the new policy will only force seminarians
to suppress their homosexual identity, creating problems that could fester and
emerge later as serious dysfunctions.
Questions
For Reporters
• Covering
these developments is a way to examine how the sex abuse scandal is changing
the church in America. It shows how divided opinion is among Catholic leaders
and lay members over the origins and resolution of the abuse.
• Is
there evidence that homosexuality plays a role in sexual abuse, or in the priest
abuses, as some contend?
• What
do seminaries do to screen out potential abusers? Has current research and expert
knowledge on this subject found its way into seminary screening and training,
or is there a gap?
• Does
your diocese have a seminary? How are the visitation and impending statement
on sexuality affecting morale and opinions there?
• Are
priests in your diocese organized? Is there a priest senate or a presbyteral
council? Are they affiliated with the National Federation of Priests' Councils?
Do they feel they have a voice?
• The
charter's section on clerics in religious orders has been rewritten to clarify
the orders' internal autonomy while respecting a bishop's authority within his
diocese. How many order priests work in your diocese? How well are they covered
by diocesan policies?
• The
story illustrates how culturally different the United States is from most of
the Catholic world. In Catholic strongholds of Asia, Latin America and Africa,
the Vatican guidance on gay priests is not expected to cause a ripple because
the existence of gay priests is not acknowledged.
• Are
lay groups such as Voice of the Faithful active in your diocese? Are they allowed
on church property or barred, as in some dioceses?
Click
the map for interview sources
in your state and region
National
Sources
ORGANIZATIONS
• The U.S. Conference of
Catholic Bishops is awaiting Vatican approval on a new Program for Priestly
Formation, which it undertook as a result of the sexual abuse crisis. The document
addresses a whole range of issues related to seminary education, but on homosexuals
says only that the bishops will follow whatever policy the Vatican issues. Bishop
John Nienstedt of New Ulm, Minn., was chair of the committee that drafted the
document. His committee worked under the auspices of the Committee on Priestly
Life and Ministry (see next item). Contact Bishop Nienstedt at 507-359-2966.
Members of that
committee come from around the country.
• The
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a Committee
on Priestly Life and Ministry, which assists bishops to provide leadership
regarding priestly ministry. It is chaired by Bishop Timothy M. Dolan of the
Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Contact 414-769-3497, archbishopdolan@archmil.org.
The web site posts a list
of committee members around the country, with contact information.
• Paul
S. Rimassa is executive director of the Center
for Sexuality and Religion, which serves clergy and laity, pastoral counselors,
spiritual directors, faculties, chaplains, seminary students and religious educators.
He has a good deal of background on the issues involving priests, celibacy and
homosexuality. Contact 610-995-0341.
• The Chicago-based National
Federation of Priests' Councils is the leading voice for the nation's Catholic
priests, representing some 26,000 of the nation's 43,000 priests. Contact the
president, the Rev. Robert Silva, 312-442-9700 ext. 207, silva@nfpc.org.
• Voice of the Faithful
is the leading grass-roots lay organization to emerge in the wake of the sexual
abuse scandal. Based in Boston, the organization pushes for church governance
reform and holding bishops accountable, and promotes victims rights. It has
been critical of an effort to ban gay priests from ordination. Contact John
Moynihan, 617-558-5252, Moynihan_john@hotmail.com,
or VOTF president Jim Post, 617-558-5252, jepost@bu.edu.
• The Conference of Major
Superiors of Men represents religious orders in the United States. Unlike
diocesan priests, the 20,000 priests and brothers in religious orders - Franciscans,
Jesuits and Dominicans, for example - generally live in communities and by their
orders' rules. They are subject to local diocese mandates, but concerns have
been raised about how to integrate the bishops' charter with the orders' historic
autonomy. The conference is based in Silver Spring, Md. Contact the Rev. Bob
Bozek, 301-588-4030, bbozek@cmsm.org.
• The Leadership Conference
of Women Religious is an association of leaders of Catholic women religious
in the United States and represents about 95 percent of the 75,000 U.S. nuns
and sisters. While male clergy commit the vast majority of abuse cases, victims'
advocates say abuse by women religious is an overlooked problem. The LCWR is
also based in Silver Spring, Md. Contact the director of communications, Sister
Annmarie Sanders, IHM, at 301-588-4955, asanders@lcwr.org.
• SNAP, or the Survivors
Network of those Abused by Priests, is the foremost advocacy group for clergy
abuse victims. SNAP has regional
directors and local
support groups. Or you can contact Executive Director David Clohessy in
St. Louis at 314-566-9790, SNAPClohessy@aol.com,
or President Barbara Blaine in Chicago at 312-409-2720, SNAPBlaine@hotmail.com.
• The Linkup, based
in Louisville, Ky., is another leading victims advocacy group. It also has information
on abuse cases from other denominations. Contact President Sue Archibald, 502-241-5544,
director@healingall.org.
• BishopAccountability.org
is a clearinghouse for information on sexual abuse by priests and on the hierarchy's
reactions. Contact the group's co-founder, Paul Baier, 781-910-5467, staff@BishopAccountability.org.
• DignityUSA
“works for respect and justice for all gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
persons in the Catholic Church” and elsewhere. It is not a church-approved
group. Contact executive director Debbie Weill, 202-861-0017.
INDIVIDUALS
• Donald Cozzens is an author, a pastoral theologian and psychologist.
He has written several books about the priesthood and is best known for his
influential The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's
Crisis of Soul (Liturgical Press, 2000), in which he wrote that many seminary
faculties included a disproportionate number of gay men. "Straight men," he
wrote, "in a predominantly or significantly gay environment commonly experience
self doubt." Cozzens is a writer in residence at the religious studies department
of John Carroll University in Cleveland. Contact 216-397-1731, dcozzens@jcu.edu.
• Washington attorney Robert Bennett was part of the 13-member board of
prominent lay Catholics appointed by the U.S. Catholic bishops to investigate
the sexual abuse crisis. He chaired the research committee that interviewed
some 100 victims, psychiatrists, theologians, seminary heads and church officials
and prepared the report on causes of abuse. Bennett is a partner at the law
firm Skadden Arps. Contact 202-371-7180, rbennett@skadden.com.
• Leon Panetta was also part of the 13-member lay board appointed by the
U.S. Catholic bishops to investigate the sexual abuse crisis. He co-directs
the Leon and Sylvia Panetta Institute for Public Policy, based at California
State University, Monterey Bay. Panetta was an eight-term U.S. representative
from California's 16th District, director of the federal Office of Management
and Budget in the Clinton administration and Clinton's chief of staff for three
years. Contact him through the institute, 831-582-4200.
• The
Rev. Thomas J. Reese is a visiting scholar at Santa Clara University in California.
Reese, the former editor of America magazine, can discuss key issues
relating to the document, such as the number of gay men in the priesthood and
who can be ordained. Contact 408-554-4399, treese@scu.edu.
• Michael
J. Bland, a psychologist with a doctorate in ministry, is clinical-pastoral
coordinator for victim assistance ministry for the Archdiocese of Chicago and
a clinical counselor at the Center for Psychological Services in Oak Lawn, Ill.
The ex-Servite priest was on the 13-member board appointed by the U.S. Catholic
bishops to investigate the sexual abuse crisis. He works nationally as a consultant
to dioceses, religious communities and other church-related agencies and was,
as a child, abused by a priest. Contact 708-424-0001.
• The
Rev. John Harvey is founder and director of Courage
International, the New York-based support group for men and women with same-sex
attractions who wish to live chastely according to the teachings of the church.
He wrote, in "Should
a man with same-sex attractions be allowed to enter the seminary?" an article
published in America magazine in 2002, that men who are attracted to other men
can live a celibate life as priests but that it is more difficult to form them
in a seminary than straight men. He lays part of the blame for the sexual abuse
scandal on widespread theological dissent present within many Catholic institutions,
including seminaries, which leads priests and others to question church positions
on sexual matters. Contact 212-268-1010, NYCourage@aol.com.
• Thomas
Plante is a professor of psychology at Santa Clara University and an expert
on the causes and frequency of sexual abuse by clergy. His writings
include Sin Against the Innocents: Sexual Abuse by Priests and the Role of
the Catholic Church (Greenwood Publishing, 2004). Contact 408-554-4471,
tplante@scu.edu.
• Dean
R. Hoge is a professor of sociology in the Catholic University of America's
Department of Sociology in Washington, D.C. He is one of the foremost researchers
on Catholic issues. He and James Davidson co-authored a 2004 study of American
Catholic attitudes. Hoge's books include, as co-author, Evolving Visions
of the Priesthood: Changes from Vatican II to the Turn of the New Century
(Liturgical Press, 2003); as author, The First Five Years of the Priesthood:
A Study of Newly Ordained Catholic Priests (Liturgical Press, 2002); and,
as editor, Young Adult Catholics: Religion in the Culture of Choice (University
of Notre Dame Press, 2001). See his paper, "The
current state of the Priesthood: Sociological Research," presented at a
June 2005 conference on the Roman Catholic priesthood at Boston College. Contact
202-319-5999, Hoge@cua.edu.
CRITICAL
OF GAY PRIESTS
• Bishop John M. D'Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend http://www.diocesefwsb.org/
has been outspoken in favor of barring gay men from the priesthood. See a July
19, 2004, Boston Globe article on his views. Contact 260-422-4611.
• The Rev. Joseph Fessio, S.J., is a close friend and former theology student
of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Fessio is widely considered
one of the most influential conservative voices in the American church today,
and he is an outspoken opponent of allowing gay men into the priesthood. Fessio
participated in a panel on Pope Benedict at the Religion Newswriters Association
conference in Miami on Sept. 29 during which he and other panelists addressed
the gay priest issue. Listen to the panel
audio recording. Fessio is currently the editor-in-chief of Ignatius
Press in San Francisco, which is the English language publisher for Benedict's
books. He spends much of his time in Naples, Fla., where he is Provost of Ave
Maria University. Contact through Ave
Maria University's web page or their toll-free number, 877-283-8648. Or
through Christine Valentine-Owsik, the Philadelphia-based media representative
for Ignatius Press, at 215-230-8095, valencom@aol.com.
• Michael S. Rose is web editor of the New
Oxford Review, based in Berkeley, Calif. He wrote an influential book,
Goodbye, Good Men: How Liberals Brought Corruption Into the Catholic Church
(Regnery, 2002), which argues that the priesthood is a largely gay profession
and that many seminaries are run by a "lavender subculture" of homosexuals who
are unfriendly to heterosexuals. Contact msrose@newoxfordreview.org.
• John Trigilio Jr. of Marysville, Pa., is president of the Confraternity
of Catholic Clergy and pastor of two parishes in the Harrisburg, Pa., Diocese.
He co-authored Catholicism for Dummies (For Dummies, 2003), The Everything
Bible Book (Adams Media, 2004) and Women in the Bible for Dummies (For Dummies,
2005). He also hosts weekly television and radio programs for EWTN Catholic
broadcasting. Contact 717-957-9309, frtrigilio@hbgdiocese.org.
SUPPORTIVE
OF GAY PRIESTS
• Sister Jeanine Gramick has defied Vatican orders to cease her ministry
to gay and lesbian Catholics. Contact her through the organization she co-founded,
New Ways Ministry, in Mount Rainier, Md., 301-277-5674.
• Donald Boisvert, assistant professor of religion at Concordia University
in Montreal, Canada, co-edited the collection of essays, Gay Catholic Priests
and Clerical Sexual Misconduct: Breaking the Silence (Harrington Park Press,
2005). The book's introduction says the Catholic Church is conflating homosexuality
with pedophilia and warns of a "witch hunt" to weed out many good
gay priests and seminarians. Contact 514-848-2424 ext. 3520, dlb@alcor.concordia.ca.
• Joe Maher is the founder of Opus
Bono Sacerdotii ("work for the good of the priesthood"), a lay
group that defends the rights of priests accused of sexual misconduct. It assists
priests and religious in crisis through a network of confidential experts in
various fields. Contact 248-628-8500, joemaher@opusbono.org.
THE
APOSTOLIC VISITATION
• The
Vatican-led visitors already have begun examining all American seminaries to
see that the values, methods and criteria by which priests are trained and ordained
conform to church direction. The visitation is being conducted by the Congregation
for Catholic Education, which is in charge of seminary education. Archbishop
Edwin F. O'Brien of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services is organizing
the work, which could continue into 2007. The "visitors" include 117
bishops and seminary personnel, working in small teams. Neither their names
nor schedules are publicized. Their work is confidential. They'll inquire into
a seminary's "formation" program, the training that prepares men -
personally, intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and communally - for a
priest's life. They will include questions about sex and chastity. Although
just one question directly touches on homosexuality, gays are a big undercurrent
of the visitation.
• Read
the document
that details how the visitation will be conducted. It is an Instrumentum Laboris,
or working paper.
• See
a Sept.
30, 2005, statement by O'Brien, posted by the U.S. Conference of Catholic
Bishops, explaining the purpose of the visitation.
• Read
"Screening
the priests," an Oct. 9, 2005, Time magazine article.
• Read
a Sept.
22, 2005, National Catholic Reporter story in which O'Brien, speaking
unofficially, said that even homosexuals who have been celibate for 10 or more
years should not be admitted to seminaries.
• See
the Aug. 22, 2005, Catholic News Service article, "Apostolic
visitation of all U.S. seminaries to start this fall." It reports that
in 2004-05, there were 229 U.S. seminaries or formation houses, with 4,556 students
- 3,308 at the theology level and 1,248 in college. About a third expect to
become priests.
• Read
an April 30, 2005, Associated Press story, "Vatican
expected to review American seminaries," posted by USA Today.
• Read
a CNS story, "Vatican
officials plan U.S. seminary visitation in 2005," from the Dec. 17,
2004, issue of The Tidings.
• Read
the July 15, 2002, America magazine article "Seminaries
Await Vatican Visitation," in which the late James Gill, a Jesuit priest
who was also a psychiatrist, wrote that many seminaries screen candidates by
means of professional interviews and psychological tests and scrutinize candidates'
sexual histories. At seminaries, formation curricula may include human sexuality,
sexual orientation, chastity, celibacy, the need for interpersonal boundaries
and ways of coping with temptations.
THE
VATICAN STATEMENT
• Vatican
officials have said that the upcoming statement will be consistent with "Careful
Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred
Orders," a 1961 instruction regarding priesthood candidates, posted
on the Roman Catholic Faithful site. It says, in part, "Advancement to
religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with
evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty, since for them the common life
and the priestly ministry would constitute serious dangers."
• Experts
in church policies predict no widespread purges of gays from parishes, schools
and seminaries, reports an Oct.
14, 2005, Associated Press article on the visitation, posted by the Seattle
Post-Intelligencer.
• The
National
Catholic Reporter's
Oct. 7, 2005, "Word from Rome" column reported that the Vatican
statement on admitting gays for ordination is likely to authorize banning candidates
who:
• have
not demonstrated a capacity to live celibate lives for at least three years;
• are
part of a "gay culture," for example, attending gay pride rallies
(a point that applies both to professors at seminaries as well as students);
• have
a homosexual orientation sufficiently "strong, permanent and univocal"
as to make an all-male environment a risk.
• Read
a Reuters
article at ABCNews.com announcing the Oct. 7, 2005, leaked news of contents
of the upcoming Vatican statement.
• Read
National Catholic Reporter writer John L. Allen Jr.'s Sept 27, 2005,
New York Times op-ed, "At
the Vatican, Exceptions Make the Rule." It's posted on a blog called
Mezomorf News of the World. Allen says that, whatever the document's wording,
it won't have much practical impact.
• Read
a March
2, 2004, CNS story on a bishops' National Review Board discussion of homosexuality
in the priesthood.
• Read
a March
1, 2004, CNS story on the bishops' Review Board's discussion of celibacy.
• Catholic
author and blogger Amy
Welborn stresses that homosexuality comprises a tiny part of the 11-page-long
document laying out the task of the apostolic visitation. "Why is it considered
unfair to expect priests and seminarians to live by the values of the institution
they serve?" she asks in a Sept. 28, 2005, New York Times op-ed,
"The
Sins of the Seminaries." It's posted by the International Herald
Tribune.
ARTICLES
SYMPATHETIC TO GAY PRIESTS
• Memphis
Bishop Terry Steib wrote a May 19, 2005, column, "Church
is home to all people of God." It is on the site of the Archdiocese
of Memphis. Steib was criticized for the column, although it does not mention
gay priests.
• The
Sept. 30, 2002, issue of America magazine was devoted to the topic: "Should
Gay Men Be Ordained?" Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton wrote in favor of
ordination. Gumbleton is an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
• Read
"Always
Our Children: A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children and Suggestions
for Pastoral Ministers," a statement of the Bishops' Committee on Marriage
and Family that was released in September 1997.
• James
Carroll, the Boston-based author and Boston Globe columnist, is considered
liberal on this issue. He blasts talk of a possible gay ban in this Oct.
3, 2005, column.
ARTICLES
CRITICAL OF GAYS IN THE PRIESTHOOD
• Read
conservative Catholic commentator Michael S. Rose's Oct. 18, 2005, Dallas
Morning News (registration required) opinion piece, "Are
gay priests the problem?" He says many heterosexual men are alienated
from seminaries by a "lavender subculture."
• The
Rev. Andrew R. Baker, a priest of the Diocese of Allentown, Pa., was on the
staff of the Congregation for Bishops in Rome when he wrote against gay ordination
in an article called "Ordination
and Same-sex Attraction," published in the Sept. 30, 2002, issue of
America magazine.
• See
"The
Church and the Homosexual Priest," by the Rev. James Martin in the
Nov. 4, 2000, issue of America.
• Read
"Thou shalt not allow homosexuals to become Catholic priests," an
Oct.
2, 2005, New York Daily News opinion piece by the Rev. John Trigilio
Jr., president of the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy and co-author of Catholicism
for Dummies (For Dummies, 2003).
• Matt
C. Abbott is a conservative columnist who, in a Sept.
22, 2005, column at the RenewAmerica site, interviews three priests on why
ordaining gay men is a bad idea.
ACCOUNTS
BY GAY PRIESTS
• An
Oct.
14, 2005, National Catholic Reporter article interviewed an anonymous
gay priest about the prospect of the Vatican document about gay seminarians.
• The
Rev. Paul Michaels, a pseudonym for a gay U.S. priest, wrote a Sept.
24, 2005, column in The Tablet of London.
• The
Rev. Gerard Thomas, also a pseudonym for a gay U.S. priest, wrote "A
Gay Priest Speaks Out" in the Jan. 28, 2005, Commonweal magazine
and an open
letter to Pope Benedict on Beliefnet.com.
RESEARCH
• It
is impossible to know how many priests are homosexual. Estimates and studies
put percentages as low as 10 percent and as high as 50 percent. Psychologist
and priest Donald Cozzens, a Catholic seminary president who wrote The Changing
Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul (Liturgical
Press, 2000) estimates as many as half are gay. The ReligiousTolerance.org article
"Homosexual
orientation among Roman Catholic seminarian students" includes a list
of the primary people who study this question and their research.
• On
Feb. 27, 2004, the lay-led Office of Child and Youth Protection of the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops released a survey on the cumulative toll of sexual
abuse inflicted on children by priests during the past 50 years. The office
commissioned experts from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York
to research most of the 194 U.S. dioceses. Read the survey
questions, posted by Opus Bono Sacerdotii, a lay group that helps priests.
Read a Feb.
27, 2004, New York Times article about the study at the Children
First site. The John Jay researchers found that about 4 percent of U.S. priests
ministering from 1950-2002 were accused of sex abuse with a minor - a total
of nearly 4,400 clergy (almost all of them priests) accused of abusing more
than 10,000 minors. Three-quarters of the incidents took place from 1960-84.
(Catholic News Service maintains an archive
of stories on the report.)
• The
Los Angeles Times did extensive surveys of U.S. priests in 1994 and in
2002. Read the
story (registration required) with links to other aspects of the poll.
OPINION
POLLS
• An
April 2002 Newsweek poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates
found that Catholics were almost evenly split, 46 percent to 51 percent, over
whether ending mandatory celibacy would alleviate the problem of sexual abuse.
In addition, 29 percent of Catholics viewed the presence of homosexual men in
the priesthood as a major reason for abuse, and 26 percent cited it as a minor
reason, while 45 percent said sexual orientation was not a factor. About a third
said that if the Catholic Church were to more effectively screen out homosexuals
from the priesthood, it would reduce the sex abuse problem. Read a Bloomberg
News report on the poll posted by The Detroit News.
• In
a May
2002 CBS/New York Times poll, about one-quarter of Catholics said
homosexuality in the Catholic Church had increased the likelihood that priests
would sexually abuse children and teenagers.
• Read
a Reuters
article on the ABCNews.com site reporting that, in a poll of 875 American
Catholics taken not long after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected to the
papacy, The Catholic Reporter found that more than two-thirds don't think
it is very important to have an all-male, celibate clergy.
PRIEST
SHORTAGE
• To
some, the issue of homosexual priests is tied up in the shortage of Catholic
priests. There are two points of view. Some believe that a gay subculture of
priests discourages heterosexuals from the vocation. The other view is that,
given the shortage, the church can ill afford to discourage earnest, qualified,
celibate men because of sexual orientation. Many ask what will happen if the
church bans perhaps a third of all potential priests, given the sharp dropoff
in vocations. For statistics, see the Center
for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown, the nonprofit research
organization that conducts social scientific studies for the Catholic Church.
• The
priest shortage is severe in the United States, but it is worse elsewhere. The
United States, with 6 percent of Catholics worldwide, has 12 percent of the
bishops and 14 percent of priests - more priests than the top three Catholic
countries combined. There are 41,000 priests in the United States, compared
with 37,000 in Brazil, Mexico and the Philippines combined, with their 340 million
Catholics - roughly a third of all Catholics in the world.
