THE REAL CAUSES FOR THE U.S. CATHOLIC PRIEST SHORTAGE

A number of US Catholic archdioceses and dioceses have announced the closure or consolidation of many of their parishes owing to a shortage of priests whose median age is over 70. The shortage is reflected in the fact that there is not one seminarian studying for the priesthood in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese; five of the 34 archdioceses did not ordain any priests in 2022; and 11 of the 34 only ordained one or two priests. 

When the Archdiocese of Detroit vocations director, Father Craig Giera, was asked why there are so few men being ordained, he responded, “I don't know, statistically, why this [shortage] is happening…” Giera never returned a call when he was asked to comment about allegations from a former seminarian that his predecessor, Father Jim Bilot, “used to screen seminary applicants to see if they would be suitable for sex with some other Detroit clergy.”

Although Father Giera had a hard time explaining the causes behind the growing priest shortage, he and other vocations directors may wish to consider the following reasons:

Lower fertility rates

The first cause for the priest shortage is the decline in the Catholic fertility rate.  While fertility rates have decreased in the United States and Europe, they are much higher in developing nations. In light of this development, it is no wonder that African countries like Nigeria with high fertility rates are exporting seminarians and priests to Europe, the United States and other countries with much lower birth rates.

With U.S. women currently giving birth to 1.6 children in a lifetime, parents are far less inclined today to encourage a son to become a priest and perhaps lose the possibility of ever becoming grandparents. However, in countries like the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where women average 6.0 births in a lifetime, one could expect parents to be more supportive of a son or daughter who expresses interest in becoming a priest or a nun.

In European countries like Poland, with a fertility rate of currently 1.3, its current population of approximately 38 million is expected to decline to approximately 32 million by 2050. In contrast, with a birth rate of 4.4, Nigeria’s population of over 233 million is expected to grow to over 411 million by 2050.  If one were investing in vocations and had insider information on fertility rates, one would be inclined to invest more in countries like Nigeria than in areas like Europe and the United States.

Decline in Mass attendance and membership

Another cause for the decrease in seminarians and priests is the decline in Mass attendance that has occurred over the past five decades. In the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, nearly 75 percent of U.S. Catholics attended Mass each week.  

The percentage of US Catholics attending Mass today is considerably lower than it was in the ‘50s and ‘60s when the number of ordinations to the priesthood was higher than at any other period in the history of the US. A 2023 study by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) revealed that the percentage of US Catholics who attend Mass weekly has fallen to 17%. The country reporting the highest percentage of Catholic Mass attendance is Nigeria at 94%.

While 112,832,144 Americans said they were Catholic at one point in their life, only 73,224,000 now self-identify as Catholic. That 39,608,144 decrease represents a 35.1% loss making former Catholics the second largest religious group in the United States – three times larger than the largest U.S. Protestant denomination – the Southern Baptist Convention whose membership in 2022 was recorded around 13.2 million.

Increase in homosexual seminarians, priests, and bishops

One of the most controversial causes for the priest shortage is the growing percentage of homosexuals in seminaries, the presbyterate, and the episcopacy. A 2012 psychological study of “actively ministering or retired priests” in the U.S. revealed that only 26.9% of the priests identified themselves as heterosexuals; 67.3% self-identified as gay/homosexual; and 5.8% reported that they were bisexual. Based on input twelve years later from straight and gay priests throughout the US, the number of straight American-born priests today is estimated to be only between 5 and 15 percent.  

Unlike the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, archdioceses like New York and dioceses like Patterson are tapping priests to serve as Vocations Directors who have track records of either allegedly being homosexuals who abused seminarians under their supervision, or using the application process to groom applicants and pipeline fellow gays into seminaries.

The Diocese of Buffalo imported 12 seminarians from Columbia in 2008. Eleven of the twelve were heterosexuals who all left formation after they rejected homosexual advances from Buffalo priests and faculty members at Christ the King Seminary which has since closed. It was reported that one homosexual Columbian, Alexander Herrera, was sexually abused by the Vocation Director, Msgr. PaulBurkhard, and was never ordained.

Bishops, particularly those with a homosexual orientation, need to examine the impact their recruitment of homosexual candidates has had on the recruitment and retention of heterosexual seminarians and priests.  With groundbreaking studies such as former seminary rector Father Donald Cozzen’s The Changing Face of the Priesthood showing that the priesthood is increasingly becoming a “gay profession,” how many heterosexual applicants will be attracted to a career where they are extremely likely to be sexually propositioned; be silenced by heterophobic bishops and pastors who do not want to be outed; or be passed over for promotions while gay priests climb the ladder in exchange for covering up or even sexually indulging their bishops.

The shortage of priests and vocations is present in other countries such as Ireland where even the late Irish homosexual cleric, Pat Buckley, criticized closeted promiscuous gay bishops, priests, and seminarians when he wrote: 

“Today, the Roman Catholic episcopate and priesthood are predominantly gay. Is it a case that they promote each other? Is it a case that they promote each other in return for sexual favors? The case of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick is a case in point. McCarrick saw to it that quite a number of his former bedfellows got miters. The old belief that the Holy Spirit appoints bishops is nonsense. A cleric gets promoted for being a company man, for having a brown tongue, and it seems for bending over for your superiors. Why are so many gay men attracted to the priesthood? Do they go in there to hide? Do they go in to escape? Do they go in for the position and the status? Do they go in for the easy, comfortable life?” 

Straight men do not want to hang out in gay bars anymore than straight young men want to join a profession that has become, outside of Africa and Asia, a gay profession. When a Catholic mother asked two of her sons if they might be interested in becoming priests, one son said, “Mom, why would you even think that we were gay?”

Lack of priest encouragement

A fourth cause for the priest shortage is the lack of encouragement from priests themselves. Today, most priests do not have parochial vicars to help them when they are older. More frequently today they find themselves “home alone” pastoring large congregations or even multiple parishes. It is no wonder that more and more priests are seeking to retire in their 60s rather than dropping dead before they reach the mandatory retirement age of 70 or 75.  Given the problems of stress, loneliness, and physical exhaustion that priests face today, it is not surprising that some priests are hesitant to encourage young men to enter the priesthood.

While some older heterosexually oriented priests may be hesitant to recruit young men to a vocation that has become a gay profession, closeted homosexual priests often enjoy the company of other homosexual priests and are more inclined to encourage other gay men to become priests especially if they find themselves physically and/or emotionally attracted to them.

Sexual Abuse Crisis 

The sexual abuse crisis, particularly in the United States, Ireland, and Germany, has not only hurt Sunday Mass attendance, but it has also seriously damaged the image of priests. When a young man or woman appears in public wearing a Marine Corps Dress Blue uniform, he or she often does so with a great sense of personal pride. Unfortunately, the abuse perpetrated by 10-25 percent of priests and over 150 credibly accused bishops, as well as cover-ups by the pope and countless bishops, has robbed many good, holy priests today of any pride they might have in wearing their Roman collars in public and being identified as Catholic priests.  

It is very difficult for young men to aspire to the priesthood when countless children and vulnerable adults are documented to have experienced abuse by priests and cover-ups by bishops. How can potential candidates be inspired to be priests like Marko Rupnik whom the pope has allowed to remain in ministry after he forced nuns to drink his semen out of his chalice; or Dennis Hanneman who is alleged in a police report to have inserted consecrated hosts into the vaginas of little girls; or even Travis Clark who was arrested after being caught having sex on an altar with two women wielding sex toys?

The halving of the number of U.S. priests over the past five decades combined with the closure of minor (high school) seminaries that manufactured predator priests who preyed upon minors as they were groomed and preyed upon as young seminarians, is naturally resulting in a decline in the number of clerical abuse cases involving boys. However, the importation of not properly vetted foreign priests and the ordination of sexually active gay seminarians is resulting in more cases involving the sexual abuse of both male and female vulnerable adults. The late Richard Sipe, the renowned expert on clergy sexual abuse, wrote, “The Catholic hierarchy in the U.S. apparently think that accepting … men ordained in other countries are safer sexually and will solve a manpower problem. They are mistaken …. Clerics from foreign countries will not alleviate the problem of sexual violations by clergy. Quite the opposite: they are often importing problems.”

Ecclesiastically mandated celibacy

The sixth and most discussed cause for the priest shortage is the obligation of celibacy, a sacrifice not mandated by Christ; a discipline implemented in the early 12^th century; and a practice not deemed absolutely necessary by most laity and clergy.

While the ​late ​Catholic University of America​ sociologist​, Dean Hoge​, concluded that there would be a fourfold increase in seminary applications if celibacy were no longer required, other researchers today believe that making celibacy optional would also reduce the number of closeted gay clergy in the Church who have had a negative impact on the recruitment and retention of straight seminarians and priests.

Catholic laity who believe that “priests” should not be allowed to marry fail to distinguish correctly between “diocesan and religious priests” and the way their fundamental psychological need to love and be loved is lived out in life. Those who oppose having both celibate and married priests and argue that “Jesus was not married” fail to recognize that Jesus did not live alone like a diocesan priest, but he lived like a religious priest in a supportive community with his apostles. Consequently, there is no scriptural paradigm for celibate diocesan priests. Even the scriptures record that Jesus sent his disciples out “two by two” (Lk. 10:1) and that God said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” (Gen. 2:18)

Interestingly, Pope Innocent II who presided over the Second Lateran Council in 1139 that mandated clerical celibacy for diocesan priests, along with most of the Council Fathers in attendance, were from religious orders. Because they had no understanding of diocesan priesthood and what it is like to live alone, it should not come as a surprise that clerical celibacy has not been observed by most priests, and even some popes, since it was mandated in the early twelfth century.

Richard Sipe, the late psychotherapist and expert on priestly sexuality, estimated that no more than half of all priests practice celibacy at any given point in time. Furthermore, he documented how no more than 2 percent of priests report having practiced celibacy throughout their entire lives. When Cardinal Jose Sanchez, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy responsible for overseeing matters regarding priests and deacons, was asked about the high celibacy failure rate, he said, “I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of those figures. While many - but not all - gay men enter the seminary at the invitation of gay bishops and priests without any intention of practicing celibacy, straight candidates are not told what their chances really are of leading lifelong celibate lives.

When the church ran out of nuns to staff its parochial schools in the United States, it had the choice of closing the schools or hiring qualified lay teachers. Likewise, the church must decide to either continue consolidating and closing churches, many of which are being converted into mosques, restaurants, and bars, or to allow diocesan priests to marry as has always been the case in Eastern Rite Churches.   

In light of the current “graying and gaying” of the priesthood owing in part to heterosexually oriented priests being required to forgo having a wife and children while gay priests are reported for engaging in orgies and are even being buried together, unless optional celibacy for diocesan clergy is allowed as it was prior to the Second Lateran Council, one should expect a continued decline in Catholic clergy; more parish closures; and more abuse cases involving mainly young men that ​rarely occur in Eastern Rite Eparchies that are staffed with both celibate and married clergy.

Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, and screenwriter. A former Navy (O6) Captain/Chaplain, seminary instructor, and diocesan respect life director, Gomulka was ordained a priest for the Altoona-Johnstown diocese and later made a Prelate of Honor (Monsignor) by St. John Paul II.  Follow Gene Gomulka on YouTube or email him at msgr.investigations@gmail.com