UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
by Tom Roberts on Apr. 13, 2012 NCR Today
“Traditional Catholicism is winning,” blared a headline on a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Anne Hendershott and Christopher White.
Whether that conclusion is warranted only time, and what one means by “traditional Catholicism,” will tell. It is the claims underpinning the conclusion that merit comment. “There were 467 new priestly ordinations in the U.S. last year, and Boston’s seminary had to turn away applicants,” read the subhead beneath the declaration that traditional Catholicism was racking up the most points on the ecclesial scoreboard.
The article went on to note that a new seminary was being built in North Carolina and that Boston’s seminary was so full it had to turn applicants away. And, it reported, there were 5,000 more priests worldwide in 2009 than there were in 1999.
Problem solved, right?
When I read the piece, which is whipping ’round the ether, I contacted Mary Gautier, senior research associate at the Center for Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
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