Catholic heartland struggles to attract new recruits

People need the church to stay close to people and not be closed in its own bureaucracy. If the church can do that, then more Italians will want to become priests.

Father Esteban Chaparro Vega

Priest from Paraguay

Rome is running out of homegrown Catholic priests as young Italian men ignore the call.

Faced with a recruitment crisis amid paedophile scandals and a decline in attendance, the church is importing priests from Africa and Asia, where Catholicism is growing and seminaries are packed. The number of Catholic priests in Europe dropped by 56,830 between 1980 and 2012, a 23 per cent decline, a study has shown. That compares with an additional 22,787 priests in Africa over the period, a 131 per cent rise, and an extra 32,906 priests in Asia, up 121 per cent, according to the study published by the Centre for Applied Research in the Apostolate, based at Georgetown University in the United States.

While the trend has been felt in many towns and cities across Europe, it is now being felt in Rome itself.

Yesterday Esteban Chaparro Vega, a priest from Paraguay, took confession at the Church of St Valentine in the Villaggio Olimpico neighbourhood in Rome, a collection of council flats next to a flyover. After arriving in Rome three years ago to study at a Vatican university, Vega, 39, was asked to help out with confessions, masses and visits to parishioners’ homes.

‘‘Pope Francis is asking priests to reach out to people, to sense their passions and sufferings, and that is what is missing in Italy,’’ Vega said.

‘‘People need the church to stay close to people and not be closed in its own bureaucracy. If the church can do that, then more Italians will want to become priests

‘‘The scandals over abuse have pushed people away but that is only part of the story.’’

The number of new priests training in his native Paraguay was steady, he said. ‘‘I come from a family of eight brothers and three of us entered the seminary.’’

He was among 70 foreign priests officially in Rome to study who had been spread around the city to help with services.