Number of Catholic Priests Still Dropping

While the number of Roman Catholics in the world is growing along with the growth in overall population, the number of priests is continuing to drop, according to new Vatican statistics.

The Vatican’s latest Statistical Yearbook, which contains figures for 1998, put the total number of Catholics worldwide at about 1 billion. It said the Catholic population grew at a rate of 1.29%--just below the 1998 growth rate of 1.3% for total world population.

The number of priests worldwide was 404,626, down from 420,971 a decade earlier, the Vatican said. It said there was significant growth in the number of priests in Africa and some growth in Asia and the Americas but a large drop in Europe.

But the Vatican reported growing numbers of candidates for the priesthood, the monastery and the convent, particularly in Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe. In 1998, there were 10,992 candidates to become priests or monks, compared with 8,958 in 1982, and 21,303 to become nuns, compared with 17,939 in 1982.