(LifeSiteNews) — Not many American Catholics are aware that there were 34,000 priests in 2022 and that in 1965 we had 60,000. There is a story behind these numbers that the U.S. Catholic bishops tend to try to spin away because the implications are damaging to them; there is an obvious lack of spiritual fruit in our Novus Ordo parishes by any metric one cares to examine.
Before 1965 and the end of the Second Vatican Council, priests did not retire; they died clothed in their proverbial cassocks and birettas. So when we say 60,000 priests (excepting those who were incapacitated due to illness), we mean they all were in the active apostolate. There were about 45.6 million Catholics in 1965 and about 75 percent were going to Sunday Mass. The active priest to faithful ratio was 1:760 in 1965.
In 2024, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops put the number of U.S. Catholics at 71 million. In 2022, we had 34,000 U.S. priests and that number has surely atrophied in the last two years. Even taking that number of priests, we must subtract the over-11,000 priests who retired at 70-75 years of age and the nearly 2,500 cancelled priests. Only about 8% of Catholics went to Sunday Mass in 2024. The active priest to faithful ratio in 2024 is 1:3,550 or about 5 times worse than in 1965.
The U.S. Catholic bishops largely shrug off the worsening shortage of priests and implement the same tired vocations promotions, with a few variations, that have never worked. They are afraid of the only vocations steam engine to continue a successful run: where it is begrudgingly allowed among the Traditional Latin Mass religious orders and now fewer diocesan TLMs. They collectively suffer from a spiritual jealousy and an a priori dismissal of our traditional centuries-long sacramental practices.
The bishops will try anything except the traditional formation of men in diocesan seminaries using the older standards that had a solid track record. They allow themselves to be manipulated by the Roman Curia hellbent (pun intended) on curbing the influence of the proven fruits of the TLM. We had lots of vocations with the Traditional Latin Mass before the 1970 implementation of the Novus Ordo Mass, and there are lots more vocations now that we have boys growing up rooted in the Traditional Latin Mass of the Ages.
The Traditional Latin Mass apostolates continue to produce about 6-times the number of vocations per faithful attending their respective Masses (Traditional Latin Mass vs. Novus Ordo Mass).
I have written before of the top-heavy nature of the Catholic hierarchy, and it is well worth repeating. In 1965, the world had about 3,000 bishops with many more priests. Today, there are 5,400 with far fewer priests than before. The corporate-style episcopacy is evident in the rubbing of elbows among prelates eager to impress their colleagues in more prestigious dioceses. The ecclesial climbing is ruinous.
Not too long ago, there was almost no possibility that a bishop would be moved from his diocese before he died. (And before the Second Vatican Council they didn’t retire at the somewhat arbitrary age of 75.) This system was superior in that a bishop was not looking to leave for a larger or wealthier diocese; his current diocese was not seen as a “steppingstone.”
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I have heard around the country complaints from the faithful about the scarcity of confession times in Novus Ordo parishes. When almost 2,500 U.S. cancelled priests are sidelined and another 11,000 are retired, the bench has been emptied, and parishioners have a hard time finding one of the most integral sacraments.
Let’s take an example from almost any diocese in the nation. If the diocese had around 300,000 Catholics and 375 priests in 1965, there had been 1 priest per 800 Catholics. If that number is currently around 125 priests and 440,000 Catholics; there is now 1 priest to 3,520 Catholics. I know of dioceses around that size where those numbers are the reality. And prelates normally do not help out with confessions. The vast majority of them don’t seem concerned with Confession coverage. The Traditional Latin Mass parishes have much more generous times for confessions. Their priest to faithful ratios are far better since their congregations produce abundant vocations.
There is a sliding scale of diminishing returns. For each priest who is cancelled or dies without a replacement ordination, the burden grows on his fellow remaining priests. There is a more crushing pastoral load. There have been many cumulative years in my own diocese when the death of priests, priests leaving the priesthood, and priests being sidelined far outpaced our scanty ordination numbers.
When there were fewer Catholics and abundant priests, the Church provided great access to her priests and the availability of the sacraments. Currently, we are losing large numbers of diocesan priests and new vocations. No one can put a price on our current priests and the educational investment of the laity who pay to educate these prospective priests before they are ordained. If a priest is cancelled for a flimsy reason, then the price of their education and their priestly experience are squandered. To any bishops who will listen: your coffers do not belong to you. You are the stewards, and an account will be demanded of you when you die.
Furthermore, there is a lack of coverage in our hospitals and nursing homes. If you are a layman and you have a sick relative, your best option is to call a Traditional Latin Mass priest if there is one nearby. Time and again, people call me or text me about priests who do not respond to Communion calls or for the Last Rites. This is directly a responsibility of our bishops. There are so many new assisted living and nursing facilities popping up that have absolutely no coverage by a priest. Even the nation’s hospitals are down to very little or no priestly coverage on a parochial level.
So often full-time hospital chaplains are the first to be told they are “not needed” and/or they roll them back into parishes. One could almost say that a full-scale retreat has been sounded by our bishops. We have almost no full-time priest-teachers, almost no full-time hospital chaplains, almost no priests leading prayer meetings, almost no priests leading bible studies, almost no priests willing to make sick calls.
I will end with some hard-hitting questions for those who don the fuchsia birettas. Why were you ordained to the priesthood and why did you then consent to be consecrated a bishop? Those are not rhetorical questions. I pray more of you have the gumption to be generous and authentic shepherds. What motive prompts you to act? Is it the fear of being sued, the fear of negative publicity, or the fear of the badly perceived optics in the eyes of your peers within the bishops’ conference? The faithful do not need a politically motivated father of the diocese who surrounds himself with yes-men who give him an echo chamber.
Do you fortify yourself with a solid prayer life and profuse penances for the Mystical Body of Christ? A worldly man of the cloth is obvious and pernicious to the faithful. Do you spend time listening to the little ones, especially those who pray before the Blessed Sacrament for a heroic amount of time per week? Your sheep should have a direct line to you, and they should be heard with some really attentive chancery ears. A “listening Church” should not be an empty slogan. The faithful easily sense veiled pronouncements of equivocation and propaganda.
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There is so much more to say. I write from a position of having nothing to lose. I will continue to write what my fellow priests cannot publicly state without a fear of reprisals. God is in charge, but He uses us for good and permits us to stray. All of us.
I had a truly fatherly bishop once, but they are sadly very rare today. It doesn’t have to stay this way. Please, Lord, reform us clergy and the laity so that we may merit bishops after Thine own heart and mind.
Fr. Donald Kloster is a priest of the Diocese of Bridgeport, CT.