The Catholic Message Board

How about some GOOD news???

https://www.catholicextension.org/stori ... 05FGD9ZUyM

"To grasp how stunning these numbers are, the nation’s largest archdioceses with millions of Catholics would have to ordain more than 1,000 priests in the same 15-year period to keep pace with the Diocese of Little Rock. No diocese in the nation has exceeded 200 ordinations in that time frame, according to the Official Catholic Directory."

"So, it turns out, the explosion of vocations in the Diocese of Little Rock is due to young people coming to understand St. Ignatius’ idea that God is surely found in “that which makes you feel the most alive.” In other words, happiness and following God’s will are not mutually exclusive."

Wonderful!

"To grasp how stunning these numbers are, the nation’s largest archdioceses with millions of Catholics would have to ordain more than 1,000 priests in the same 15-year period to keep pace with the Diocese of Little Rock."

This is great news, but not exactly great math. Little Rock has about 150K Catholics, and 1,000/51 = 19.6. There aren't many dioceses with a Catholic population of more than 2,940K. In fact unless I am mistaken Los Angeles is the only one - even NY and Chicago don't have that kind of population.

NY is close--2.8M.

I'm not sure I follow your math. Here's how I do it.

Little Rock has 51 vocations out of a Catholic population of 154,382, or 0.00033035 vocations per capita.

Apply that to Chicago's 2,163,000 Catholics and you get 714 ordinations (Babe Ruth's HR total).
Apply that to New York's 2,807,298 Catholics and you get 927.
Apply that to LA's 4,025,346 Catholics and you get 1,329.

The 1K vocations point is 3,027,098, so yeah, the article is off.

The city I live in has a population of around 80,000. A fair estimate of Catholics might be around 10,000-15,000 maybe a little more. We currently have 12 seminarians. That seems like a healthy rate, even given that not all of them are likely to be ordained, a certain percentage will drop out as they discern that they do not have a vocation to the priesthood, there is of course nothing wrong with this, they are open to the idea becoming a priest but conclude that it just isn't what they were supposed to do There still is some spiritual and intellectual benefit to going through the first few years of the process I imagine.

Obi-Wan Kenobi wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 3:21 pm I'm not sure I follow your math. Here's how I do it.

I rounded Little Rock's Catholic population off to 150,000, so that gave me a 1K vocations point of 150,000 * (1000/51) ~= 150,000 * 19.6 ~= 2,940,000. NYC almost qualifies, true, but there aren't multiple archdioceses in the USA that do (unless I missed a huge one!).

You didn't. LA, NY, Chicago, Boston, etc. https://catholic-hierarchy.org/country/scus1.html

Kage_ar wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 1:16 pm How about some GOOD news???

https://www.catholicextension.org/stori ... 05FGD9ZUyM

"To grasp how stunning these numbers are, the nation’s largest archdioceses with millions of Catholics would have to ordain more than 1,000 priests in the same 15-year period to keep pace with the Diocese of Little Rock. No diocese in the nation has exceeded 200 ordinations in that time frame, according to the Official Catholic Directory."

and we won't even get started on the number of Permanent Deacons they have ordained....

Kage_ar wrote: ↑Tue Dec 05, 2023 1:16 pm How about some GOOD news???

https://www.catholicextension.org/stori ... 05FGD9ZUyM

"To grasp how stunning these numbers are, the nation’s largest archdioceses with millions of Catholics would have to ordain more than 1,000 priests in the same 15-year period to keep pace with the Diocese of Little Rock. No diocese in the nation has exceeded 200 ordinations in that time frame, according to the Official Catholic Directory."

Good for you!

On average, we have a handful each year.