An average of one priest ministering to 8,000 souls is a sad picture of the priestly vocation unable to cope with the growing population. The 2021 Catholic Directory of the Philippines counted more than 120 active bishops and 10,470 priests serving 85 million Catholics. It’s the same number of clergy as 10 years ago while the Catholic population has grown since then.
Recent international conferences about the clergy and religious vocation, particularly in the West, have identified the priest shortage as the most urgent problems facing the Church. Priestless parishes, empty altars and empty pews are sad realities in some parts of North America and Europe — a crisis caused by retiring senior clergy, added to those leaving the priesthood and the ever-decreasing sacerdotal vocation.
Sexual abuse scandals, coupled with the not-so-good examples set by bi-shops along the corridors of power in the Vatican and elsewhere, were not unlike a tsunami wiping out the Church’s credibility for more than decade or so until Pope Francis assumed the Chair of Peter in 2013 and began the radical reform of the Roman Curia.
Change has come and the Church in Asia is gradually overcoming the crisis of priestly vocations. In Bangladesh, Catholics saw 12 young men ordained as deacons in 2022. In this predominantly Muslim country with 500,000 Catholics or about 0.4% of the total population, the Church celebrates with the gift of new laborers in the vineyard of the Lord.