UNITED STATES
GlobalPost
Jason Berry
The shortage of Catholic priests is an economic drama playing out across major countries to a yawn by the news media.
In the United States, 20 percent of parishes have no priests. Since 1995, bishops have sold more than 1,700 churches – on average, that’s a church shuttered once a week for 18 years — down-sizing a religious infrastructure that had grown steadily between the end of the Civil War and the 1969 voyage that put Americans on the moon.
The pastor is the fundraiser at every parish. Healthy parishes offer a range of services, from food pantries to therapeutic counseling, in addition to Mass, baptisms, weddings and funerals. Most of the non-sacramental work is done by lay people because of a growing personnel crisis.
The budget that lay staff uses to run offices and social outreach depends on the pastor’s appeal to the flock. Without a pastor, parishes struggle to pay for themselves.
For every 100 priests who retire, only 30 men are ordained, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate.
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