{"id":7796,"date":"2013-05-03T06:00:16","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T10:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=7796"},"modified":"2013-05-02T15:54:04","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T19:54:04","slug":"priest-shortage-a-continuing-concern-for-north-country-catholics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2013\/05\/03\/priest-shortage-a-continuing-concern-for-north-country-catholics\/","title":{"rendered":"How to deal with the North Country’s priest shortage?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Richard Cardinal Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, performs ordinations at Catholic of the Holy Cross and other churches in the archdiocese in February, 1960. Fewer new priests are new being ordained to replace those who are retiring. Photo: Archives of the Archdiocese of Boston via George Martell<\/a>, Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s often said that the population of the North Country is dropping (census numbers from 2010-2012 show it’s actually shifting<\/a>, with some areas dramatically losing population, others gaining, and still others remaining pretty much stable.) One group of people whose numbers are<\/em> dropping, it seems, is Catholics — at least those in the Diocese of Ogdensburg<\/a>, which covers most of the North Country. In that diocese, there were about 108,000 Catholics in 2012. Now there are about 93,000 (these numbers from diocese Chancellor Sister Jennifer Voltraw via parish counts.)<\/p>\n

But more rapidly than the number of Catholics, the number of priests in the diocese is decreasing. Last year, Brian Mann reported the shortage<\/a>. In that story Odgensburg diocese Bishop Terry LaValley said he expected the shortage to worsen, as priests age and fewer seminarians come up to replace them, with the result that in a decade the diocese would have only about 40 priests.<\/p>\n

As Sister Voltraw said to me when I spoke to her on the phone this morning, “[the population of Catholics is] down, but the needs are ever as great, the acreage is the same, and we’re having fewer and fewer priests taking care of the population.” And older priests as well, who may be past retirement age and not be able to travel as much as they used to.<\/p>\n

In a story on the steps the diocese is taking to address the problem, WWNY-TV <\/a>mentions it’s considering increasing responsibility for deacons and lay people, and continuing to consolidate parishes. “We’ve really been trying to be creative”, Bishop LaValley says in the article, “in trying to assure that the pastoral care of the people remains even if they don’t have a resident pastor.”<\/p>\n

A note on the numbers: You may notice that some of the numbers in the WWNY-TV piece don’t match those here. I’m not quite sure why that is, but the numbers quoted in this post are from the best source I could find, Sister Voltraw. Also, if you’re interested in more <\/em>numbers and analysis about Catholics in the United States and around the world, check out this report from the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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