Irish society has "issues around commitment" according to Dr Andrew O'Connell, Director of Communications for the Presentation Brothers. He was responding to a report in this week's The Irish Catholic showing that as many as 160 priests have died in the past year while only nine men have been ordained.
The report says that these figures suggest that the Church's vocation crisis is reaching "catastrophic levels".
Dr O'Connell said the vocations crisis was "nothing new".
However, he said that he believed that the Irish Church was now "engaging in a dynamic way with the problem".
Referring to the Church's Year of Vocations, which begins on Vocations Sunday this year, he said that the initiative aimed to focus on "the importance of vocations in life".
Dr O'Connell, a member of Vocations Ireland, an umbrella group representing vocations promotion in all the religious orders, said that there was now "greater confidence in trying to tackle the problem".
Pointing to research conducted by the Iona Institute last year, he said that, in 1986, over 55 per cent of those aged 25 to 29 were married, while the comparable figure for 2006 was 18 per cent.
This showed that there was something of "crisis" in the vocation of marriage", Dr O'Connell added.
"What we are dealing with is a confusion surrounding postmodernism," he continued.
"Other groups are suffering from this. Membership of political parties is lower, volunteerism is down. More and more we are living as individuals."
The Irish Catholic report says that the figures indicate that, if trends continue, the number of priests in Ireland will half in the next 20 years.
Currently, there are 4,752 priests serving. This is set to drop to 1,500 by 2028, the paper reports.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, the National Director of Vocations, Fr Paddy Rushe said that the figures represented "a stark statistic".
The trend, he continued, communicated "the urgency there is in addressing the number of vocations".
Fr Rushe said: "People aren't coming forward in the way they did in the past."
Fr Eamon Bourke, commenting on the report said that the statistics "bring the problems we are facing into sharp focus".
The crisis is also affecting religious sisters, according to the report. The figures show that 228 nuns passed away last year, while only women made final vows to join religious orders.
However, recent figures also show that there has been a small increase in the number of young men applying to study for the priesthood, though the numbers who leave seminaries without completing their studies remains high.
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