WARSAW — When the
Vatican announced the publication of its latest Annuario Pontificio
— its directory of the Roman curia and cardinals, as well
as archbishops and bishops worldwide — it confirmed a continuing
global growth in Roman Catholicism.
Yet there are signs of change in the church, in particular a
shift of gravity from Europe to the Third World.
“It will be good if this brings a change of priorities,”
says Maciej Zieba, the head of Poland’s Dominican order.
“Until now, our church’s universal dimension has been
understood too narrowly.”
In March, John Paul II will become history’s third longest-serving
Pope, heading a church which has grown by 40 percent in 25 years
— from 750 million members in 1978 to 1.07 billion today,
representing 17 per cent of the world’s population.
The Roman Catholic Church has also grown in Europe, yet at a
much slower rate. In 1978, the year of Pope John Paul’s
election, Europe’s 266 million baptized Roman Catholics
comprised 35 percent of the world total. In 2001, its 280 million
total made up just over a quarter.
Europe remains Catholicism’s heartland, in historical
and cultural terms.
Still, throughout most of the continent, the Roman Catholic
Church is facing a decline in its influence. The number of people
coming forward for the priesthood is going down everywhere, other
than in the Pope’s homeland of Poland, whose 86 seminaries
currently boast 6,682 trainee clergy, a third of the European
total.
In Spain, where 41 per cent of priests are past retirement age,
almost half the church’s 68 seminaries reported no recruitments
in 2003, leaving a total of 1,797 students nationwide compared
to 7,052 50 years ago.
In neighboring France, priesthood numbers have dropped fourfold
over the same period, with fewer than one in 10 Roman Catholics
now attending church.
In Germany, where practicing Roman Catholics dropped from 6.2
million to 4 million between 1990 and 2001, the church’s
Berlin archdiocese hopes to pay off a 150 million euro debt in
2004 through halving the number of parishes — currently
207 — and selling off selected churches.
By contrast, priestly vocations have flourished since 1978 in
Africa, Asia and Latin America.
There are now more than 20,000 men training for the priesthood
in Africa. This represents a 6 per cent increase in 2002 alone,
and a fourfold increase over 25 years.
With Third World church hierarchies now fully up-to-date with
modern communications and media methods, non-western perspectives
look set to take on greater importance.
The number of foreign priests ministering in France has increased
six-fold in the past five years, while key European archdioceses
from Barcelona to Utrecht have become increasingly reliant on
the help of priests from developing countries.
The growing interchange could fuel tensions between an older
generation of liberal western Catholics shaped by the Second Vatican
Council, and their counterparts from the developing world.
Maciej Zieba, the Polish Dominican, thinks what he calls the
“progressive internal agenda” of concern to Europeans
and Americans — such as relaxing clerical celibacy, or admitting
women to the priesthood — is of less interest to Catholics
elsewhere.
“To be credible witnesses, we have to move on from the
kind of issues which focused energies 20-30 years ago,”
he says.
Meanwhile, Austen Ivereigh, deputy editor of The Tablet,
a London-based international Catholic weekly, notes that when
cardinals assemble at the Vatican to choose a successor to Pope
John Paul, the choice will have to reflect the church’s
changing demographic and cultural face.
“Many are already talking openly about the need for a
Pope from Africa, Asia or Latin America, who will open up the
Vatican to the developing world,” he says, “just as
this Pope opened it to Eastern Europe.” |
