Not enough! The most recent statistics were released in the 2008 Vatican yearbook, known as the Annuario Pontificio. Who knew that the Vatican had its own yearbook? I wonder if the Pope has people sign his copy with those cool notes that people like to write in yearbooks….
But to answer your question, there are 407,262 priests in the world. That may sound like a lot, but there are also a lot of Catholics, 1.131 billion. So, if you do the math that means there is one priest for every 2777 Catholics. Yet, in the year 1981, that ratio was 1 priest to 1932 Catholics.
The good news is that there are 115,480 seminarians in the world, so hopefully the number of priests will continue to grow. It was great having two seminarians with us at Curé. Scott Wallisch was with us on internship since late February. Nathan Haverland was staying with us this summer while he worked with Catholic Charities. They are both great guys and will make excellent priests, God willing. So don’t forget about them as they head back to their seminaries, but instead keep them in your prayers, and maybe even drop them a note of support sometime too. The Church needs them!
-Fr. Greg
If you would like submit a question, please write it out and place it in the “Ask a Priest” box in the vestibule or email me at frgreg@kc.rr.com.
