The parishes also live the problem of most of the Italian workplaces: the turn over is missing. For each priest who retires he does not enter “in service” one younger one. Or at least, the generational change no longer takes place in the proportion of 50 years ago.
The vocations are clearly decreasing (40% less than in the seventies), as are weddings (-8% in 2024), participation in Sunday masses (37% in 1993 to 23% in 2019), the frequentations of the catechism and the oratory. According to the latest official data, dating back to 2021, the number of Italian diocesan seminarians is 1,804. In these data, aspiring religious priests do not include, that is, those who enter a religious order.
The legacy of Francis
The hope is that attention to ecclesial life, the conclave and the election of the new Pope help to awaken interest in the spiritual path. “The Church is alive and fruitful when it generates new vocations – Pope Francis said in March, for the 62nd world day of prayer for vocations – and the world seeks, often unconsciously, witnesses of hope, which announces with their life that following Christ is a source of joy. So let’s not get tired of asking the Lord new workers for his Masse ».
Falling numbers
According to the last year of the CEI, on 225 dioceses there are 120 major seminars, where candidates for the presbyterate carry out philosophical and theological studies, and have an average age of 28 years. The minor seminars are 72, and welcome children between 11 and 18 years of age who attend lower and high school middle schools.
In Italy there are also 8 regional seminars and one interregional. One of the oldest and most numerous is located in Molfetta, and today it hosts 60 students from the 19 dioceses of Puglia. Sometimes reduced numbers do not allow the single local church to equip themselves with their own seminar. In recent decades, interdiocesan seminars have therefore arisen, such as that of Fossano, to whom the candidates of 5 Piedmontese dioceses arrive.
A general departure from the Church is underway. And the Church is perfectly aware of this. “It is the process of secularization that advances” says Don Enrico Castagna, rector of the diocesan seminar in Milan, where young seminarians have gone from 150 of the most flourishing years to 54 today, reflecting the trend of all the seminars of Italy. Few but good.
The “new” seminars
“Now that the path of young people in the seminary no longer enjoys the social support of the past – explains Don Castagna – is even more the result of a very deep choice and we must be aware of it. We continue to sow with heart width but we perfectly realize how decline the numbers are. The idea is not to live this phenomenon as a retreat but as a change.
And we are changing that some passage of the path: for example, during the six years of studies, we introduced one year into the parishes: we divide the boys into small groups and we put them in contact with an experience that can be extremely useful for them ».