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UrbScotty

(23,979 posts)
Mon Apr 8, 2013, 09:20 PM Apr 2013

Third-world priests moving to US, Europe to help ease priest shortage

The Catholic Church in Western Europe and the United States has been coping with a severe shortage of priests in the last few decades, as many abandoned the priesthood or passed away. So bishops in the developed world have been reaching out to their counterparts in the developing world to bring priests from Africa, Asia and Latin America, where the priesthood is still an appealing prospect and vocations are booming.

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The decline of the priesthood as a vocation is particularly pronounced in France, a country that defines itself as secular. Magnificent churches dot the country, but France’s clergy is old and ordinations of priests are in continuing decline. The average age of France’s 14,000 priests is 72.

About 1,600, the number of foreign priests has nearly tripled over the last eight years, with many being recruited to parishes in urban areas and the Parisian suburbs.

To church officials, this is not necessarily a bad thing. “They bring freshness, youth and another way to consider the pastoral,” said the Rev. Pierre-Yves Pecqueux, who heads international recruitment at the Conférence des évêques de France, the church’s bishops’ committee. “They have their own way to speak about faith, and a joy to believe in God.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/08/world/europe/foreign-clergy-move-to-france-to-aid-catholics.html
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