International priests who serve in the Diocese of Camden are pictured at St. Pius X Spiritual Life Center, Blackwood, on Aug. 21, 2008, during an appreciation dinner in their honor given by Bishop Joseph Galante and Father Terry Odien, Vicar for Clergy. International priests serve in the diocese as parochial vicars, hospital chaplains, and other capacities assisting parishes, and minister to migrant farm workers throughout the summer months.
With the number of new priests ordained in the United States failing to keep pace with the number of priests who no longer are in ministry through death or retirement, and with Catholic populations becoming more diverse, many United States dioceses are being assisted by foreign born-priests who come to the United States on loan from their home dioceses or religious congregations.
International priests who serve in the Diocese of Camden are pictured at St. Pius X Spiritual Life Center, Blackwood, on Aug. 21, 2008, during an appreciation dinner in their honor given by Bishop Joseph Galante and Father Terry Odien, Vicar for Clergy. International priests serve in the diocese as parochial vicars, hospital chaplains, and other capacities assisting parishes, and minister to migrant farm workers throughout the summer months.
The foreign-born priests typically work in the United States for a limited period of time, usually from three to five years, the time at which their religious work visas expire.
According to a three-part series last week in the New York Times, one of six priests now serving in United States dioceses has come from abroad, with most coming from India, Vietnam and the Philippines. According to the Times, about 300 new international priests arrive in the U.S. each year.
A third of seminary students are foreign-born, up from 22 percent in 1999, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), Georgetown.
Nationally, the number of priests has declined more than 30 percent since 1975, from 59,000 diocesan and religious priests then to 40,580 in 2008, while the Catholic population overall has grown, according to CARA.
While in recent years the number of newly ordained priests to Catholic population has been higher in the Diocese of Camden than in other dioceses in the region, the numbers of newly ordained are being outpaced by deaths and retirements. From 1997 to 2007, for example, 37 new priests were ordained, but 103 died and many retired.
Including retirements already announced, there now are 157 diocesan priests in active ministry in the Diocese of Camden, serving in parishes, education, campus and Hispanic ministry, prison and hospital chaplaincies, and diocesan administration. About a dozen religious order priests also serve parishes in the diocese. With many priests reaching retirement age during the next decade, the diocese estimates that by 2015 there will only be about 85 diocesan priests available for ministry in the six counties of South Jersey.
“For this reason, we have worked to address the decline in the number of priests available for ministry through the parish planning initiative, by making priestly vocations a key pastoral priority, and by augmenting our diocesan priests with foreign-born priests who serve with the permission of their sending dioceses or religious orders,” said Andrew Walton, spokesman for the diocese.
In 1994 there were eight foreign-born priests serving on a temporary basis in the diocese. Today there are 31. About a third are from India, another third from Uganda and Nigeria, and the remaining third from Mexico, South America, Haiti, Philippines and Poland, said Walton.
“While there are challenges facing incoming foreign-born priests and their parish communities, including language barriers and becoming acclimated to our culture and parish life, it is a great blessing to our diocese and we are grateful for their dedicated service,” Walton said.
Walton cautioned, however, that a reliance on foreign-born priests is not a permanent solution to the decline in the number of priests available for ministry.
“With new, more stringent religious worker immigration regulations now going into effect, and with increased demands for their service in their own dioceses, there are no guarantees that foreign-born priests always will be available to United States dioceses. However, because priesthood is essential to the life and mission of the Church, priestly vocations must constantly be cultivated here in our own diocese. Even though the parish restructuring now underway in this diocese will help address the decline in the number of diocesan priests needed for parish ministry, recruiting new priests always will be a major priority for this diocese.”
The diocese now has 13 seminarians studying for priesthood, with three scheduled to be ordained in May.
The Diocese will give special attention to vocations in its parishes and schools during the national Vocation Awareness Week January 11-17. The National Coalition for Church Vocations publishes user-friendly planning kits both in English and in Spanish to help parishes and schools promote vocations.
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