Enrollment declines for priest, deacon and lay ministry formation

Published: 2004-04-29

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The number of U.S. Catholic seminarians in post-college studies dropped 4 percent this past year, but there were bigger enrollment declines in deacon candidate and lay ministry formation programs, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reported. CARA reported only 2,092 candidates in deacon formation programs in 2003-04, down 17 percent from the 2,514 the previous year. Those figures are somewhat misleading, however, because many dioceses were apparently in transition to adding an aspirant period before candidacy. CARA reported 886 aspirants in 2002-03 but 1,233 in 2003-04. Lay ministry programs suffered a severe decline of 27 percent, from 35,448 in the 2002-03 school year to an estimated 25,964 currently. The figures were published in late April in the spring issue of The CARA Report, a quarterly review of current research on the Catholic Church. A more comprehensive report on the findings, "Catholic Ministry Formation Enrollments: Statistical Overview for 2003-2004," was posted on CARA's Internet site, http://cara.georgetown.edu.

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