There is No Shortage of Priests

I have heard for some time of the crisis in Catholic vocations—that is, of a shortage of priests.

It seems to me that this shortage is purely conceptual. God is providing, as always. We simply have not twigged to the fact that we need fewer priests, in the modern developed world, than we once did.

In the Philippines, where my wife’s family still lives, there is a small roadside chapel every few kilometers throughout the countryside. Most people attend services there. Most do without a priest, except on special occasions—a lay minister reads the service, and distributes pre-consecrated hosts.

Why? Because Filipinos cannot afford cars. If they are to attend a mass, it must be within walking distance.

This used to be close to the case in Canada, even three generations ago. We all traveled by horse power; the famous Pony Express, trying for speed, managed 9 mph and had to switch horses every 25 miles. We also lived, half of us, widely scattered in homesteads out on the land. We now live, 85 percent of us, in the cities. Remember that next time you see a small rural church shuttered. Yes, there are not enough priests to keep it open. But there are also fewer parishioners, and less need for a church in that location.

The evangelical Protestant groups that are growing, in America and in the Third World, seem simply to have grasped this reality. Their churches are huge and centralized. There is even a big new Pentecostal church in my hometown, Gananoque; their old one was tiny. The new one, interestingly, is right by the turnoff from the highway.

Megachurches are simply more efficient. With a megachurch, and one big congregation, you need only one priest, where before you might have needed twenty. Yes, there are other things needed than consecrating the host—but these other things can be done by lay people.

Megachurches also serve an important social function, in our disjointed, rootless times. They create community. Families come on Sundays not just to worship, but to socialize, to eat, to learn, to be entertained. There is little enough to do in a typical suburb, and little enough contact with neighbours. Some fault this as insufficiently religious in spirit. I laud it as filling an essential need, the need for community. Especially in these times, when the wider culture can be hostile to traditional Christian or Catholic values, an all-embracing Christian community is very much called for. A place that has something always going on for children, young people, singles, married couples, and the elderly.

And, after all, what could be more Catholic than a megachurch? We’ve always had them. We invented the concept. They’re called cathedrals.

We still have cathedrals, of course. But somehow, over the years, we have lost part of the essence of the cathedral experience. They used to be far more what megachurches are today. Most old cathedrals in Europe were in the middle or at the head of a large open space, a plaza or piazza. This piazza was also the center of the city’s life. On Sundays, the whole town would be there, doing far more than just attending services. There was a lively market; there were live performances; there were places to dine. Just as in a modern Protestant megachurch, church and Sunday were a full-day experience. The same was true, incidentally, of other religious buildings, in other cultures. A large Buddhist temple would always feature a restaurant and a library, for example. A mosque would include a restaurant, a hospital and a hotel.

The evangelical Protestants have an advantage: their megachurches are new, and can be built from the ground up to reflect modern needs. Catholic cathedrals tend, for example, to lack needed parking. They do not usually tend to be near the highway. But with some awareness of the concept, much can probably be done in terms of retrofitting.

As it happens, I should soon have some personal experience of a Catholic megachurch. The government of this Muslim Emirate has permitted the construction of a new Catholic church to serve the entire country, due to open in about a month. That’s a congregation of 140,000 souls. The complex will, in megachurch style, include a conference center, bookstore, educational building, and café.

I’ll let you know how it goes.