{"id":1424,"date":"2008-11-23T23:16:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-23T23:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/deaconsbench\/2008\/11\/irelands-surprising-priesthood-boom.html"},"modified":"2008-11-23T23:16:00","modified_gmt":"2008-11-23T23:16:00","slug":"irelands-surprising-priesthood-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/11\/irelands-surprising-priesthood-boom.html","title":{"rendered":"Ireland’s surprising priesthood boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought vocations in Ireland were dead, along comes this surprising piece of news<\/a>, from the Irish Times: <\/p>\n

IT IS \u201ca myth\u201d to say there is a continuing dearth of vocations to the Catholic priesthood in Ireland, the church\u2019s national co-ordinator of diocesan vocations, Fr. Paddy Rushe, has said.<\/p>\n

Noting that 30 men entered seminaries to train as priests in Ireland last September, with 31 having done so in September 2007 and 30 in September 2006, he contrasted this with the situation at the beginning of the decade when, in 2000 for instance, 13 men entered. Of that number nine were ordained last year.<\/p>\n

Of those entering in recent years, he expected that at least 18 would be ordained in each year. \u201cThe problem is that when people sign up, it takes six or seven years for them to be ready,\u201d Fr Rushe said.<\/p>\n

This meant that \u201cwe are only starting to see people emerge who signed up in 2001, which was a bad year for the Catholic Church as scandals broke and we were at the height of the Celtic Tiger\u201d.<\/p>\n

Should the numbers of seminarians continue to rise, he expected an influx of new priests to the Irish Catholic Church by 2014.<\/p>\n

He forecast that \u201cin 2014 we will see twice, if not three times as many new priests emerging\u201d.<\/p>\n

Another factor, Fr Rushe added, was that while the average age of seminarians in Maynooth now was about 34, this was coming down. In his own diocese of Armagh the average age of entrants was 24. Currently there are 70 men training for the priesthood at St Patrick\u2019s College Maynooth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just when you thought vocations in Ireland were dead, along comes this surprising piece of news, from the Irish Times: IT IS \u201ca myth\u201d to say there is a continuing dearth of vocations to the Catholic priesthood in Ireland, the church\u2019s national co-ordinator of diocesan vocations, Fr. Paddy Rushe, has said. Noting that 30 men…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\nIreland's surprising priesthood boom - The Deacon's Bench<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/11\/irelands-surprising-priesthood-boom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ireland's surprising priesthood boom - The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Just when you thought vocations in Ireland were dead, along comes this surprising piece of news, from the Irish Times: IT IS \u201ca myth\u201d to say there is a continuing dearth of vocations to the Catholic priesthood in Ireland, the church\u2019s national co-ordinator of diocesan vocations, Fr. Paddy Rushe, has said. Noting that 30 men…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/11\/irelands-surprising-priesthood-boom.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Deacon's Bench\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-11-23T23:16:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"deacon greg kandra\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Ireland's surprising priesthood boom - The Deacon's Bench","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/2008\/11\/irelands-surprising-priesthood-boom.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Ireland's surprising priesthood boom - The Deacon's Bench","og_description":"Just when you thought vocations in Ireland were dead, along comes this surprising piece of news, from the Irish Times: IT IS \u201ca myth\u201d to say there is a continuing dearth of vocations to the Catholic priesthood in Ireland, the church\u2019s national co-ordinator of diocesan vocations, Fr. 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