Wanted – Polish priests and nuns!
Poland's Catholic Church is praying for new arrivals
Photo: Flickr.com/mlhradio
Poland’s Catholic Church is facing a recruitment crisis as figures show a sharp drop in the number of young men and women willing to join a monastery. The emergency is forcing the church to advertise online in search of new recruits.
A total of 6,017 candidates for priesthood are being trained throughout Poland compared with 6,236 only one year ago, according to statistics from the National Council for Priestly Vocations in Poland. And the decline in female newcomers has also dropped by an overwhelming 50%.
The situation is the worst in the capital Warsaw where there is now one priest to every 136,125 faithful, compared with the Southern Tarnow diocese, which claims one cleric for every 5,357 worshippers.
For about two years following the death of Polish pontiff John Paul II, seminaries were besieged with double the usual amount of candidates for the priesthood. But today’s figures show a dramatic decline.
The staffing crisis has alarmed the church hierarchy and prompted various monastic orders to search for less conventional methods to promote priestly vocations – such as advertising campaigns.
The first to test the power of public relations were the Paulites. Fragments of a documentary about newcomers to their monastic order appeared on YouTube, causing a rise in candidates for priesthood. Several seminaries are now following suit, placing ads and films on the web to encourage more applications.
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