Catholic Church Importing Priests From Africa and Asia for US and European Churches as It Runs Short of Natives

The Catholic Church has been increasingly turning to Africa and Asia to find priests to staff its parishes in the U.S., Europe and other parts of the world because it's now struggling to find native priests in these areas, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.

"A growing phenomenon within the Church is the use of African and Asian priests in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere where there are too few native priests to staff parishes," noted CARA in a report highlighted on the Center's blog 1964 Thursday.

The report explained that across the world the ratio of Catholics per priest has grown with the number of Catholics per priest increasing from 1,895 in 1980 to 2,965 in 2012.

The general shortage of priests says the report is also preventing the construction of new parishes in emerging Catholic communities. Keep reading

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