Modest rise in entries to seminaries

NEW FIGURES have revealed a modest rise in the number of vocations to priesthood and religious life in England and Wales.

Nearly 100 men and women entered convents, seminaries and religious houses across England and Wales in 2013, according to ­statistics released to coincide with Vocations Sunday.

Last year saw 44 new seminarians while 22 men and 30 women entered religious life. The number of ordinations to the priesthood also increased, with 39 new priests in 2013, eight more than the previous year.

This year’s crop of candidates is almost twice that of 2001, when vocations hit a historic low, although it is still less than in the 1980s. The number of men entering the seminary was as high as 160 in 1985. The years 2010 and 2011 saw 56 and 46 new seminarians respectively.

But while the new figures suggest a halt in the decline, the new vocations are not enough to replace retiring clergy. For instance, in the Archdiocese of Liverpool next year, more than a third of priests will be over 75.

In England and Wales there are 182 men in priestly formation in 2013, less than the number of active priests in the Archdiocese of Westminster.

The latest figures also reveal that the three dioceses of Wales had just one candidate in 2013 while the Diocese of Salford had none. The Diocese of Menevia’s youth director, Fr Ceirion Gilbert, said there was a healthy number of vocations in Wales, and that the 2013 number did not represent the number of young men in, or having just completed, their training.

The dioceses with the highest number include the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Diocese of Nottingham which each had six vocations. 

Fr Christopher Jamison, director of the National Office for Vocation, said the 2013 figures represented a significant upturn compared to a decade ago. “We have stopped the sense that the number of entries goes down, down, down,” he said. “We’ve stopped the number declining inevitably and we’ve turned that round. That’s really encouraging.”