[Chart on page 9]

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SEMINARY STUDENTS (in Italy)

1962 30,595

1978 9,853

Clerical Decrease

Says L’Osservatore Romano of May 16, 1979: “We are faced with a sharp decrease in numbers [of seminary students in Italy]. The tendency began to manifest itself about 10 years ago and has maintained its trend up to the present. The phenomenon is part of a more general tendency characterizing the whole of Europe.”

So for the past 10 years, according to the Vatican’s official newspaper, there has been a steady loss of candidates for the priesthood. Indeed, as the accompanying charts indicate, the decrease has been very great. In Italy only one third as many seminary students were enrolled in 1978 as in 1962! In France, ordinations of priests in 1974 were less than one third of what they had been in 1965!

The Vatican paper points out: “The decrease in seminary attendance has caused a corresponding fall in the number of seminaries themselves. They numbered a total of 375 in 1970 against 259 in 1978. . . . From a peak of 918 [priests] ordained in 1966 [in Italy] we have reached a minimum of 384 new priests in 1978.”

This situation is not confined to just a few European countries. According to the Italian newspaper La Stampa: “[World wide] it is ultimately calculated that between ’65 and ’75 at least forty thousand priests, including diocesan priests and those belonging to religious orders, abandoned the holy orders as well as twenty thousand nuns.”

How Many Catholics Are Still Practicing?

Meanwhile, what about the Catholic flock? Some Catholics are afraid that many may be becoming Catholics in name only, and they have cited the following figures in Italian publications: Attendance at Mass has dropped by more than half in France and Italy in the last 15-20 years. In Italy, where it is estimated that 99 percent of the population is nominally Catholic, less than one third of them attend Mass regularly! Even so, the Italians are better Mass attenders than the French, of whom only 16 percent go each week.

If the feelings of young people are an indication of the future, then Italian Catholics have another reason for concern. Panorama magazine interviewed young Italians from 16 to 24 years of age and found that only 12.6 percent felt that spiritual values were the most important in life. Of the values most in doubt among young people, “Religion and the Church” tied for first place with “the family, the couple, marriage, parents.”

Defiant Young Priests

With fewer applicants for the priesthood creating what is called a ‘vocational crisis,’ it appears that the seminaries cannot be too choosy about applicants. The results have been disturbing to Catholics, both in Italy and around the world.

Writing in the Italian journal Seminari e Teologia, a Catholic layman stated in 1976 that “in answer to the ‘vocational crisis’ the seminary doors have been thrown wide open to all and, among others, a motley array of young people have been welcomed inside.” He went on to describe the priests coming from such seminaries as “rebellious, presumptuous, irreverent and almost always irremediably Marxist.”

This Catholic layman spoke of the new generation of Italian priests as “troublemakers who operate from their deconsecrated headquarters full of subversive posters,” and added: “Just let the Bishop try to do anything about those characters. We have seen what can happen​—there is a near revolution!” Who is to blame? This writer states: “The fault lies with those who should be holding the reins, but have let them be snatched out of their hands, either as a result of weakness or cowardice, or even because they have been won over to the new modern ideologies.”

What the Pope Is Doing

Pope John Paul II has made it clear that he does not want to let anyone ‘snatch the reins’ of church leadership from his hands. Religious publications in recent months have written of a papal ‘crackdown’ against liberal theology, moral laxity and clerical unrest. Yet, as seen at the beginning of this article, the pope is getting opposition from persons prominent in church affairs.

Illustrating both the papal crackdown and the worldwide nature of the problem with the clergy, the Italian magazine Avvenire reported that the pope gave a stiff lecture to the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits). He told the worldwide order (27,700 members in 106 countries): “Certainly I am not in ignorance of the fact . . . that the crisis afflicting religious life in these times has not spared your Society.” He called upon the Jesuits, who “have developed a reputation for providing the theoretical foundation for the church’s involvement in political and social issues,” not to “give way to secular tendencies.”​—New York Times, December 7, 1979.

[Graph on page 10]

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DISAPPEARING CLERGY

Since 1881, the population of Italy has doubled, while the number of priests has halved, from 84,834 to 40,866

(Priests per 1,000 Italians)

1881 (2.9)

1977 (0.72)

[Graph on page 11]

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DISAPPEARING FLOCK

(Percent of regular Mass attenders in Italy)

1956 69%

1977 28%