An Australian bishop has gone to India to find priests to work in an area of Australia that ranges from tropical islands to the wilderness of the Australian outback.Bishop Brian Heenan of the Roman Catholic diocese of Rockhampton in the state of Queensland told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that Indian priests would help overcome an extreme shortage of home-grown clergy.
"These priests can come, please God, for maybe two years or three years and then, if all is going well, they will probably go back to India, and others will come and take their place,"
Heenan said.
The bishop said he would also be happy to hear from priests elsewhere in the world who were interested in working in his diocese.
He noted that other Australian bishops had gone "priest hunting": "Most of the dioceses have journeyed overseas, as I am doing, to South America, South Africa, the Philippines or to Europe, and including India, simply because … not as many young people are offering themselves for the priesthood at this time.
"Therefore, we simply have to look elsewhere to see if we can find others to come and be there for our people," Heenan said.
The Diocese of Rockhampton Web site says that in addition to tropical islands, the region has, "spectacular national parks as well as a number of carefully preserved ancient Aboriginal sites. Further west is the great Australian outback."
The diocese covers 414 438 square kilometres (160 015 square miles), which makes it only slightly smaller than all of Sweden, while it has only 400 000 people.
In his ABC interview, Heenan explained why the Catholic Church in Australia is having difficulty attracting young people to holy orders.
"One of the reasons is that there are so many opportunities available for young people once they have finished their education up to year 12," the bishop said. "I think they find those much more attractive than going off to a seminary or to a training college, where the rate of recompense, or pay, is very ordinary."
The diocesan Web site says the diocese has, "81 Mass centres clustered as 31 parishes" but with the shortage of priests they, "do not have the luxury of Mass celebrated in their community every week".
Heenan said Australia had gone overseas for priests before: "There is a little bit of a deja vu experience here. When Australia was first established [in the 19th century], a lot of Irish priests left their country and came here."
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