Archbishop Aguer: Our vocations crisis must be addressed. Here is what I propose

On numerous occasions I have referred to a crucial issue for the Church: the formation of candidates for the priesthood. Today I take it up again, without pretending, of course, to exhaust the subject with these articles. And I do so on the 20th anniversary of the passing of St. John Paul II, who clandestinely studied for the priesthood because of the Nazism and communism that ravaged his native Poland, and who, as pope, together with then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger – later his successor, Benedict XVI – did so much to repair in part the chaos of the postconciliar period.
The decrease in the number of priests – 406,996 worldwide in 2023, 734 less than in 2022, according to official figures of the Holy See – is worrying. So is the free fall in the number of seminarians: according to the same Vatican statistics, there has been a steady decline since 2012, and it went from 108,481 in 2022, to 106,495 in 2023. On the other hand, the number of bishops increased from 5,353 in 2022 to …More