THE Catholic Church in Australia, where Catholicism is said to be in full retreat, is now having to look to the poorest countries in the world to find priests.
According to Earth Times, the farther a country leaves poverty behind, the greater the difficulty it has finding young men wanting to train as priests.
Is this Filipino Catholic priest, pictured sprinkling holy water on a baby Bengal Tiger on World Animal Day in 2008, about to be poached? (AP Photo/Aaron Favila.
Australia used to recruit Catholic pastors from Ireland and other parts of Europe where affluence was yet to prevail. They have stopped coming and now congregations look to India, the Philippines, even Spanish-speaking South America, to put someone in the pulpit.
Before flying off to India on a recruitment drive, Brian Heenan, a Catholic bishop in the north-east city of Rockhampton, said:
It’s not a new thing for a country like Australia to be welcoming priests or missionaries from another nation to help us sort of fulfil our priestly ministerial needs.
As was the case with the Irish last century, the offer is a short-term contract with an option to stay for life.
So these priests will come, please God, for maybe two years or three years and if all is going well they’ll probably go back to India and others will come and take their place.
A quarter of Australia’s 21 million people profess to be Catholic. But only seven per cent of Catholics in their 20s regularly attend Mass.
Seminaries have closed for want of seminarians. And only a third of seminarians stay the course and become priests.
Catholicism is in retreat in Australia faster than perhaps anywhere else in the world.
Heenan said:
There are so many opportunities available for young people once they have finished their education. And I think they find those much more attractive than going off to a seminary or a training college, where the rate of recompense or pay is very ordinary.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
February 6th, 2010 at 2:00 pm
Well that’s what the Catholic Church does best, adapt fast, just like a virus. By the way, I don’t think South American countries are the poorest countries in the world. They are doing quite well nowadays.
February 6th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
Too bad they’ve got so many sexual hang-ups; there are special breeding-programmes for endangered species nowadays and they might help.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:07 pm
I think you mean ‘abroad’, not ‘aboard’.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:13 pm
I have an idea that might help? Sent the C. of E. Anglo Catholic vicars to Australia, complete with wives, and that would get them out of the UK.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Broga, nice idea to send the C. of E. Anglo Catholic vicars to Australia, but sad to say transportation for criminals stopped a long time ago.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:36 pm
My anecdotal observation is of a new Philipine Methodist minister and new Indian Catholic priests, installed in the New England section of the US. Will they start importing parishioners as well? XD
February 6th, 2010 at 5:14 pm
Most observant Catholics in the developed world seem to be first generation immigrants. It doesn’t bode well for the long term future of the Catholic church which is about to become the “African church based in Rome”.
February 6th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
Poaching priests sounds pretty good fun to me.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
‘There are so many opportunities available to young people once they have finished their education’…. Hmmm, think education might be the key word here. My how the good old church must look back on the days of ignorance and illiteracy with misty-eyed nostalgia.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:38 pm
Angela K. Point taken. I overlooked that. Did you know that when criminals i.e. some poor man who poached a rabbit from the estate of his christian overlord, not major thieves which infest the churches – they were often flogged. And the flogging, on ship or en route to Aunstralia, often exposed the bones it was of such severity. A convict, known for his stoical endurance, was assumed not to “feel the way more gentle people do” and on occasion the decision would be taken to use a much heavier whip. (Bit like the old farts of the Jockey Club who insist on continuing with a heavy whip the better to lash exhausted horses instead of agreeing to a lighter one or none at at all.)
The point I am getting to, Angela, is the floggings were often overseen by a cleryman which rather disposes of the gentle Jesus business. All of this is in THE FATAL SHORE by Robert Hughes – my copy published by Pan 1988. There was even a Hanging Psalm which the poor was forced to recite at Tyburn Tree, for those who met their end in London. First two lines:
Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother deceive me.
The parson would be present, of course. And today, we are being forced to pay £20 million from our taxes to protect a Pope who must be one of the most cruel and disastrous influences on the planet. The infestation continues, I am afraid.
February 6th, 2010 at 7:59 pm
@Broga Good point. That decrepit old nazi is just a continuation of the same old repression that has been going on for centuries. Personally I can’t wait for the tosser to come over here and find out what we think of him. If he’s planning on coming anywhere near Manchester I think you might see me on News At Ten!
February 6th, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Marcus. I guess you will not be alone. I read a letter somewhere wondering why he needed a triple safety glass Popemobile and £20 million of our taxes to protect him when he thinks he is the favoured son of his god. A couple of prayers should be enough. Except, of course, that prayer is asking an omniscient being to change its mind. I think he is going to get the message that he is not wanted.
Let those who want him here pay for him. Why should atheists, agnostics, muslims, protestants (particularly of the self invented church of Ian Paisley stripe etc. etc.) be forced to fund this repellent pantomime.
February 6th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
A point that Australia and the UK have in common is that both already have more nontheists than practising believers (www.Guardian.co.uk), and both are within 30 years of having a majority that recognizes that religion is the root of all evil and that all godworshippers are insane, including those who would not use violence to impose their beliefs on the whole population. In both countries part of the reason professional pushers are desperate to believe they are the majority is that it enables them to rationalize, “We can’t all be insane.” And in both countries 99 percent of all priests are either control freaks seeking absolute power or paedophiles seeking available altar boys. To find significant numbers of the third kind, those who are motivated by monetary considerations, it became necessary for the Australian church to go to the third world.
Where Australia and the UK differ is that in Australia the media have more freedom to tell it like it is, instead of being manipulated by unelected hierarchs such as TIMES owner Rupert Murdock and the equally godphuqt tabloid disinformation peddlers; C of E bishops; and the popephuqt BBC chairman; into becoming part of the conspiracy to keep the masses in a permanent state of mindslavery and ignorance. Australian newspapers have carried editorials denouncing pope Ratzinazi’s crimes against humanity that the UK media pointedly ignore — this despite the fact that Catholics and pretend-Catholics in Australia constitute twenty percent of the population compared to five percent in the UK (www.vexen.co.uk/UK/religion.HTML ). And unlike the UK, Australian media do not pretend that terrorist acts by rugbutters violate the principles of their religion when in fact they epitomize them, a pretence that all religions encourage out of awareness that their own glass houses are not shatterproof.
February 6th, 2010 at 10:34 pm
@William Harwood. Many thanks. Interesting post. I find many Australians have an admirably freethinking and anti-authority attitude.