"The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few.” How many times have you heard those words of Jesus repeated, usually at the beginning of a vocation talk. And usually, the preacher will tell you what a shortage of priests we face.
But is that true? Do we face a shortage of priests?
Well, the number of Priests in the United States has dropped by a third, while the number of Catholics has actually increased by close to twenty million, or nearly twenty-five percent. So, twenty-five percent more Catholics and thirty percent fewer priests accounts for the fact that the roughy seventy million Catholics in the United States don’t see a priest quite as often as they used to. Sounds like a shortage.
A good comparative measure to use is the ratio of priests to people. In other words, how many people are there for one priest in a given place.
When I was ten years old (in 1963) there were just under nine hundred people for each priest. Today, there are over 4,000 Catholics for each priest. That’s more than a 300% increase in the number of Catholics a single priest must take care of. Sounds like a shortage.
Why are there fewer priests? One of the biggest factors is age. The baby-boomers produced more babies, and hence more vocations, than this country has ever seen before, and probably more than we will ever see again. That’s why 1950 was the year we had more priests per people in the United States than ever before and more than we have had ever since.
But those of us born in the 50’s are reaching our sell-by date. The average age of a priest in the United States was 35 in 1970. Forty years later it was 63. Today it is approaching 70. So, in most of our dioceses, almost half of our priests are at retirement age. It doesn’t take a sociology major to figure out that as the large number of priests in my generation head off to the nursing home and our final reward, the number of people to be served by each priest will only continue to increase precipitously.
But does this decrease really represent a shortage of priests? It certainly feels like a shortage when the parish I grew up in (Saint Brigid’s in Millbury) had a pastor and three curates when I was a kid. It now has a singe priest who covers two parishes. It feels like a shortage.
But it's also a complex reality. For example, when you compare the ratio of priests to people today to the ratio of priests to people in the 1920’s, it’s just about the same. It was that baby-boomer bubble that raised our expectations.
And when you compare the ratio of priests to people in the rest of the world, well we’re looking pretty good. Remember the number of people for a single priest in the United States is about 4,000. In South America the number of people for a single priest is over 7,000. And the same is true of the Caribbean and Central America. It doesn't get much better even in Africa, where the Church is growing by leaps and bounds. Even there we find almost 6,000 people for a single priest.
So, whether we live in Worcester or West Africa, in Providence, Puerto Rico or Ecuador…we need more priests.
Priests to continue Christ’s work of Redemption until the end of time. Priests to proclaim the Gospel, by what they say and by what they do. Priests to consecrate and sacrifice. Priests to shepherd after the model of Christ the Good Shepherd. Priests to celebrate the sacred mysteries, consecrating and sanctifying, anointing, forgiving and blessing.
Priests to offer the the Sacrifice of the Mass, in which he who offered Himself on the Altar of the Cross now offers himself through the hands of his priest. Priests who pray and teach and bind up wounds. Priests who “never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We need more priests. And how do we get them?
We get them from families. Good and loving families who are consecrated to Christ and to his Church.
One such family was John and Harriet. They brought up their family in Dorchester in the opening years of the last century. It was a working class neighborhood where life centered around the Church and the oldest of their six children, John, went on to be ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Boston and later the founding Bishop of this Diocese, and enthroned in that cathedra. Cardinal Wright died forty years ago yesterday, which is why this Mass is offered for the repose of his immortal soul.
And while we should pray each day for the men God calls to be priests, we should pray for their families as well.
Pray for those mothers and fathers who teach men what it means to be called “father,” by their example, their encouragement and their prayer.
For remember, every priest who raises a chalice from the Altar in participation with the perfect sacrifice offered by Christ upon the altar of the cross, first learned how to hold a sippy cup at the table, taught not to spill the milk by the ones who fed him and clothed him and protected him as a child.
Every priest who preaches the word of salvation from a pulpit like this one, a word which will rouse them, console them, and give them hope, once learned how to talk and gained the courage to speak the truth from parents who will faithful and true.
Each priest who blesses on behalf of Christ and his Church with the blessing that only a Priest can give, first learned how to make the sign of the cross from forehead to breast and from left shoulder to right by a faithful man whom he first called father.
Each priest who offers prayers for untold thousands, first learned how to kneel and to pray from a family of faith, a domestic Church, mothers and fathers who had given their lives over to God.
Pray for these families of present and future priests, who by their example and their prayers will foster the vocations which Christ has planted in the hearts of their children.
Vocations which will bring forth priests to minister to your children and grandchildren and great grandchildren for generations to come, as Christ has ordained for our good and the good of all his Holy Church.
