Africa’s brain drain is no longer restricted to engineers, doctors, teachers or nurses; priests are becoming the hottest commodity.The Church in developed countries has turned to the new digital media and Africa for recruits.
Ireland, a major exporter of Catholic priests to Kenya in the 1960s, is now facing a crisis that could see it close down its parishes in the next 15 years.
France, which is also facing a similar crisis, has turned to social network sites, such as Facebook, to entice new blood into priesthood.
In April, the Catholic Church in France launched a campaign in Facebook with the slogan “Why Not Me.”
According to Time magazine, the site has been popular with young people. The campaign also involves distributing brochures in bars, movie theatres and restaurants. A few years ago, the Roman Catholic Church in England launched a campaign using beer mats and posters to recruit more priests.
But before they can recruit and train their own priests, Europe and the US are turning to developing countries for imports. Of almost 1,316 foreign priests in France, 650 come from Africa, according to the Times report.
According to the latest Pontifical Yearbook, released in February, Africa and Asia are the only places with increases of followers, priests and sisters, but figures are declining in Europe and America.
Number of priests
The number of Catholic priests has grown by 3.8 per cent in Asia and 3.6 per cent in Africa in the period 2000 to 2008. Europe and the Americas showed a decrease of about half a percentage point in priests, while the number dropped 1.8 per cent in Oceania.
Although not yet a flood, a number of Nigerian Catholic priests are now working in the US, while a spattering of Kenyans are to be found in places like Kentucky.
The importation of priest into the developed countries has raised a debate with some theologians claiming this is another form of brain drain from Africa, denying its people trained workers.
According to the Statistical Yearbook of the Church, in 2006, there was one priest for every 1,510 Catholics in the US compared to one priest for every 4,343 Catholics in Kenya.
Those moving to the “greener pastures” say they are not attracted by money but a calling to take care of the Lord’s sheep.
In an interview with the New York Times, two years ago, Fr Maina Waithaka, a 32-year-old Kenyan priest then stationed in Chicago was categorical, “I have priest friends from Kenya who visit, and vice versa. Those guys live rich and have a much better lifestyle. They have a cook and someone to wash their clothes. I have to do my laundry and think of what to eat. You tell me this is fun?”
The same article quotes another Kenyan priest working in Kentucky, Rev Chrispin Oneko, who first went to work in Jamaica before moving to the US.
He says his was answering to a call to help the church in Jamaica and the US which are facing a personnel crisis.
A priest in Ireland may earn about Sh78,750 monthly.
This could rise to a base salary of Sh108,000 a month, plus Sh4,800 for each year since ordination in the US.
But American priests may earn more.