ROME (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis has said that there soon won’t be “enough priestly vocations for everyone” and suggested training the laity to make up for the lack of priests.
Francis made the comment as he was addressing the 56th general chapter of the Order of Augustinian Recollects (OAR) in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall on Thursday.
Speaking about the plummeting numbers of vocations within the OAR and the Church, the Pope said that the day will come “when there will be no more Augustinian Recollects, [and] when there won’t be enough priestly vocations for everyone.”
The Pope had begun his address with a reflection on Saint Joseph ahead of the saint’s upcoming Feast Day on Saturday, but soon moved on to the topic of the crisis of vocations in the OAR, which he compared to the situation in the Church.
“There is something that the Prior General said that is happening everywhere, in all the dioceses, in all the religious congregations,” said Francis.
He was referring to a previous comment made by the Augustinians’ Prior General who pointed out that, out of the eight original provinces of the Order, only four now remain.
“This means that in terms of numbers, we are going down the ravine,” Francis remarked.
The pope suggested that there are “thousands of explanations” for this, including the fact that young people, who he said are fewer today due to declining birth rates, “do not see things clearly.”
He also opined that Europe and America “do not give us what they used to in terms of vocations” and suggested that the Church “will have to look at other cultures” to find them.
Francis then challenged the friars gathered in the Clementine Hall to consider the extinction of their order and of the priesthood, and to prepare for “the day when there will be no more Augustinian Recollects, [and] the day when there won’t be enough priestly vocations for everyone.”
“Do not be afraid to ask yourselves this question: Have we prepared the laity? Have we prepared the people to continue with the pastoral work in the Church?” he continued.
He added: “I do not dare to be a prophet and say what will happen, [but] it worries me, it worries me.”
“I trust in the Lord, but I also have to say these things.”
In the conclusion of his address, Francis suggested that lay people should be given “the charism” of priests and religious to be able to carry on in their absence.
“Let us prepare ourselves for what is going to happen, and let us give our charism, our gift, to those who can carry it,” he said.
The full text of the Pope’s address to the Augustinian Recollects can be found on the Vatican’s official website but is so far available only in Spanish.
Francis made his remarks just a few days after a German bishop authorized eighteen lay people, seventeen of them women, to confer the sacrament of baptism. Bishop Overbeck claimed his decision was made in response to a lack of priests in his diocese.