LEAP OF FAITH
Number of priests in training reaches highest in 15 years
The number of young men training for the priesthood in Scotland has reached a 15- year high, it can be revealed today.
The rising number comes despite
Pope Francis warning of a global
“crisis of vocations” facing the Catholic Church.
The pontiff previously voiced alarm at the “haemorrhaging” of nuns and priests in Europe and the UK and speculated that seminaries, monasteries, convents and churches may be forced to close because fewer people were called to lives of religious service.
However, Peter Kearney, spokesman for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said that while there are “fewer vocations than there were once and fewer than the Church would prefer”, vocations in Scotland are at their highest level since 2005.
He said: “In 2005/6 there were only two students studying for the priesthood.
“Since then, vocations have grown, slowly but steadily, and today there are 29 seminarians.”
While acknowledging that vocations were not at the level they were several decades ago, Kearney stressed they were not continuing to decline as they were in the early part of this century.
In Scotland today there are 449 priests in active ministry with 120 retired and 127,000 practising Catholics affording, said Kearney, “one of the highest ratios of priests to practitioners in the world”.
Archbishop Leo Cushley said he welcomed “any increase in vocations to the priesthood and religious life” and that it was something they continue to promote in the Archdiocese of St Andrews & Edinburgh.
Figures f rom the 2011 census showed Scotland was becoming increasingly secular, with 36.7 per cent of people saying they had no religion, an increase from 27.5 per cent who said they had no religion in 2001.
Kearney said efforts to encourage some lapsed churchgoers to return included harnessing social media.
He added: “The overwhelming response of many parishioners to being able to keep in touch with their own parish was very positive. Hopefully this work will offer a path by which more lapsed Catholics might return to the practice of their faith.”