During the General Audience of May 22, 2024, at the greeting the novices of the women’s congregations of Italy in St. Peter’s Square, the Pope expressed his concern about religious vocations.
“I see these novices and I ask myself: how many are Italian? Few!”
“There is a shortage of vocations in Italy,” Francis worried. And he urged the faithful: “Let us think and pray for vocations to the consecrated life.”
In fact, in 2021, the data from a report of the Italian Bishops’ Conference revealed that in only 10 years, vocations had declined by 28%.
In 50 years, the number of seminarians has decreased by more than half. In 1970, there were 6,337 seminarians, compared to 2,103 in 2019.
More broadly in Europe, in the space of 10 years, the continent lost around 27,000 priests, 6,000 seminarians, and close to 80,000 nuns, according to the latest data on the Catholic Church published in 2023.
Apart from Africa, all continents are experiencing a dramatic decrease in the number of seminarians.