By Jessica Able, Record Staff Writer
The Archdiocese of Louisville welcomed two new priests to its fold Saturday — Fathers Sean McKinley and Wilfredo Fernandez, both young, fresh from seminary and eager to serve the church and her people.
Their ordination brings the total number of priests in the archdiocese to 191. And there are 14 seminarians currently in formation.
While studies have warned of a looming vocation crisis in the U.S. and other parts of the world for years — and the Archdiocese of Louisville’s presbyterate is smaller than it was in the 1970s — it’s not experiencing a vocation crisis, according to local leaders.
There are two primary reasons the archdiocese is on stable ground, said Dr. Brian B. Reynolds, chancellor and chief administrative officer of the archdiocese.
The archdiocese, he said, began planning for projected shortages in the 1990s, adopting a four-part plan both to prepare for fewer priests and to increase the numbers.
While the numbers of priests has been decreasing since the 1970s, the number of seminarians has risen in the last 10 years. In 2007, there were just three seminarians in formation to be priests of the Archdiocese of Louisville
Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz noted during an interview last week that people are tempted to compare the number of priests 50 years ago to the number of priests now, which doesn’t take into account how the church has changed.
“The truth is the church changes and the needs of the church change,” he said. “We have to look at the number of priests in context of the number of deacons, religious and lay members.”
The Second Vatican Council, Archbishop Kurtz noted, called every baptized Catholic to holiness, to serve others. Church offices around the archdiocese are now staffed primarily by deacons, religious and lay people who serve in a variety of pastoral and ministerial roles, supporting the work of the pastor. And the pastor may have more than one parish.
Father Jeffrey Shooner, the Archdiocese of Louisville’s vicar for priests, described the need for priests in the archdiocese as “tight,” not dire.
“What we are really looking at is the need for two to four seminarians being ordained (a year),” said Father Shooner, who is also pastor of St. Patrick Church.
“Where we’ve been is one to three (being ordained each year). That means moving that bar on average one more person per year.”
While the priest situation is not dire, Father Shooner noted, the archdiocese is “not flush” either. “We need more seminarians.”
It became clear in the early 1990s, Reynolds said, that the Catholic population was shifting and that there would be fewer numbers of ordained clergy. The archdiocese began extensive strategic planning efforts both in the church’s organizational structure (number of parishes) and staffing strategies (number of priests).
With the prospect of fewer priests being ordained, Reynolds said, there were four alternatives:
- Reduce the number of parishes.
- Cluster multiple parishes under one pastor.
- Expand the role of pastoral administrators (lay people or deacons).
- Invite additional religious order priests and priests from foreign countries to minister in the archdiocese.
Instead of choosing to address the problem with only one or two alternatives, which was the choice of some dioceses, the Archdiocese of Louisville incorporated all four into its strategic planning process. This led to the parish reorganization that began in 1995 and saw the closure of some parishes and the clustering of others.
This planning also accounts for the growing number of priests from other countries who are coming to serve here. This summer, four to five more priests from Africa and India are expected to arrive in the archdiocese.
Reynolds believes the decision to choose not just one alternative to address the reality of fewer priests was key to the present stability.
“We’ve done some of each in the last 20 years. That is why, I believe, we are a stronger faith community today,” he said.
See related story on a breakdown of priest numbers in the Archdiocese of Louisville.
