Directory shows more retired priests, priestless parishes

Published: 2004-07-19

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Each year the Official Catholic Directory gives a statistical snapshot of the U.S. Catholic Church. The just-released 2004 directory shows several trends that will have a significant impact on the church in coming years. These include a growing number of retired priests in a shrinking pool of clergy, more parishes without a resident pastor and a steady decline in the number of church marriages. The 2,300-page directory lists every Catholic parish, school and hospital in the country as well as diocesan offices, religious orders and other official church institutions. It also covers U.S. overseas territories. Excluding figures from Puerto Rico and the overseas dioceses that are not part of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Catholic News Service found that the USCCB dioceses -- covering all U.S. states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands -- had a total of 28,967 diocesan priests, of whom 8,302 were listed as retired, sick or absent. In other words, only 20,665 had official church assignments. This means that at the start of 2004 28.7 percent of U.S. diocesan priests held no church assignment -- up nearly 1 percent from the 27.8 percent retired, sick or absent reported last year by the USCCB dioceses.

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