c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In this era of Eminem and Britney Spears, of sexy sitcoms and sexier commercials, of high-speed Internet and instant gratification, a life of celibacy devoted to God can be a hard sell to a teenager.

So as the nation’s Roman Catholic leaders gathered recently and watched a video called “Fishers of Men,” designed to draw young men to the priesthood, they had good reason to worry about the future of their chosen way of life.

Church leaders have long have been aware of the statistics. There are now about 43,000 Catholic priests in America, down from more than 58,000 in 1965. As the American Catholic population has risen to about 70 million, more churches must share priests.

What receives less attention, though, is that the men who go into the seminary generally aren’t doing so until later in life. The average age of newly ordained priests was 36 last year, up from 28 in the 1960s and 26 in the 1940s.

This means the average career length of newly ordained priests likely will be shorter than the length of the careers of priests retiring now, at around age 70.

The “Fishers of Men” video is part of a program of the same name, managed by the U.S. bishops conference and promoted at their annual meeting in June, that bishops hope will attract younger blood. The title comes from the Bible, from when Jesus told two fishermen and future apostles that if they followed him he’d make them “fishers of men.”

The bishops are trying to encourage priests to more actively recruit young men to the priesthood.

“Data on this is overwhelming. Nearly four of five men ordained to the priesthood in recent years responded in surveys that it was a priest who invited them to consider their vocation,” said Bishop Blase Cupich, chair of the bishops’ committee on priestly life and vocations.

At the same time, Cupich lamented survey results that showed only 30 percent of priests actively seek men out for the priesthood. That needs to change, he said.

In the “Fishers of Men” program, already used in at least half a dozen dioceses, priests try to attract new seminarians by talking about their own experience in deciding to enter religious life.

One priest says: “When you’re called to be a priest, you don’t give up your talents or your gifts. They’re crystallized. They’re purified. Sanctified.”

Another priest recalls: “John Cardinal O’Connor used to say the priesthood is tough, and that it’s for real men. You have to become a real man if you want to become a priest.”

Why is so much more effort needed now than in the past?

Observers of vocational trends say it’s because of smaller families, with parents who want grandchildren; a secularized culture wary of lifetime commitment and celibacy; Catholic assimilation in America; and increased family mobility that detracts from parish loyalties.

They also cite changing dynamics in Catholic schools. A few decades ago, most Catholic school teachers were religious brothers or sisters, ready examples for students to follow in their footsteps. But now most Catholic school teachers are lay people.

The priesthood, viewed as a divine calling, is also seen these days as a countercultural career choice, said Mary Gautier, senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

“Going to the seminary means you’re rejecting marriage, you’re not going to have children, and you’re not going to make a lot of money which basically in the United States puts you at a lower status,” she said.

(Jeff Diamant writes for The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J.)

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