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Catholic World News News Feature

More foreign-born priests ordained in the US May 01, 2007

Newly ordained priests in the US are more likely to have advanced academic degrees than their counterparts of previous years, according to a new study. They are also more likely to have been born in another country.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, which conducts an annual survey of ordination classes, reports that the average age of new American priests is 35: a figure that matches the result from 1998, when the CARA survey was first undertaken. The largest group of ordinands (36%) was between the ages of 25 and 29; a small group (3%) was over 60. One of three ordinands was born outside the US, with the largest numbers coming from Vietnam, Mexico, Poland, and the Philippines.

Most of the new priests had completed a college education before entering the seminary, and one in five had obtained an advanced degree. About two-thirds reported having worked at a full-time job.

The ethnic composition of the group of newly ordained priests roughly matched the overall US population, although the proportion of Asia-Americans was somewhat higher among the ordinands, and the proportion of Hispanic-Americans was lower.

The CARA study included 282 graduating seminarians, out of a total of 475 men expected to be ordained to the priesthood in the US this year.