Catholic church in Scotland launches campaign to recruit more priests

The Catholic church in Scotland has launched a major campaign to attract more young men to join the priesthood amid concerns over a rapidly aging clergy.

The Church is seeking to convince young men in parishes across the country to join the vocation as the number of priests in parts of Scotland is expected to drop by 100 in the next two decades, Herald Scotland reported.

Figures from about a decade ago have shown that the number of Scottish men entering the priesthood has been reduced to one or two a year. Blairs College, the main entrance for teenagers who want to be priests, closed down in the late 1980s.

While the number of priests seems to be decreasing, the Church said that here are signs of "green shots of recovery" with a sustained rise in those who are now being trained.

The Church is planning to distribute copies of a new magazine this weekend to all 500 Catholic parishes across Scotland. The magazine would feature young men who are currently studying at the Scots College in Rome.

John Keenan, president of the church's national vocations agency and Bishop of Paisley, said that he believes that God is calling many young men to the priesthood.

"As I go round our parishes, schools and youth events I see, every day, young or single men who'd make ideal priests and I'm sure God is calling many of them to be priests for Scotland," he said.

"But they won't come forward unless they hear God's call. Today God calls them through modern media so I want everyone to take a copy of Priests for Scotland and put it in the hands of a man you think might be being called. You just might have found Scotland a new priest and God won't forget it," he continued.

The decline in the priesthood is evident in the Galloway Diocese, where the number of priests had dropped from 55 to 23 in the quarter century from 1990. In St. Andrews and Edinburgh Archdiocese, the number of priests is expected to drop from 130 today to only 30 in 2035.

Pope Francis has recently expressed his concern about the "hemorrhage" of priests and nuns from the Catholic church.

While speaking at a Vatican gathering on religious life last Saturday, he warned that the loss of clergy is weakening the church. He said that one of the factors that are causing nuns and priests to quit is a society that discourages lifelong commitments.