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rfmcdonaldMaïa de la Baume's New York Times article describes the repetition, in the Roman Catholic communities of France, of a pattern I've read of elsewhere in Roman Catholic communities elsewhere in the world where the numbers of parishoners taking holy orders have dropped off: priests migrate from Third World countries, often former colonies, to take over congregations in the former colonizer.
I'm not inclined to think this a good strategy. In the countries which receive these clerical migrants, differences between the priest's perceptions of the norms of acceptable religious practice and the congregation's can be quite serious (conservatives priests and liberal parishoners are the conflictual combination I've heard of), perhaps enough to create greater conflict between the Church and its members and so worsen things. In the countries which send well-trained clerics, meanwhile, the brain-drain of priests can weaken the position of a Church that is still, despite its vigour, new on the ground.
I'm not inclined to think this a good strategy. In the countries which receive these clerical migrants, differences between the priest's perceptions of the norms of acceptable religious practice and the congregation's can be quite serious (conservatives priests and liberal parishoners are the conflictual combination I've heard of), perhaps enough to create greater conflict between the Church and its members and so worsen things. In the countries which send well-trained clerics, meanwhile, the brain-drain of priests can weaken the position of a Church that is still, despite its vigour, new on the ground.
In Togo, the Rev. Rodolphe Folly used to conduct exuberant Sunday services for a hundred believers of all ages, who sang local gospel music and went up to him to offer what they had.
In this quiet town in Burgundy, he preaches to a more somber audience of about 40 gray-haired retirees in an unadorned 19th-century church that can accommodate up to 600 people.
“In my country, we applaud, we acclaim, we shout,” said Father Folly, a Roman Catholic priest who spoke in the living room of his modern, modest house. “Here, even when I ask people to shake hands, they say no.”
Father Folly, 45, has settled in this town of about 9,000 residents, assigned to replace an aging priest. He has brought his jovial smile and good heart to a place where religious practice is weak, as it is in many other areas of France. He is part of a battalion of priests who have come to France from abroad — from places like Benin, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon but also Vietnam and Poland — who now represent about 10 percent of France’s declining clerical ranks.
[. . .]
The flow of priests from the developing world to wealthier churches in the West amounts to a brain drain within the church. The ratio of priests to parishes is just as bad, if not worse, in the developing world as it is in the West, but the Western nations have the resources to relocate and support these foreign priests. Bishops from Europe and the United States recruit priests from the global south in ad hoc arrangements with local bishops and religious orders, usually without any involvement from the Vatican. The flow of Catholic missionaries, who used to leave France, Italy, Ireland and the United States for the developing world, has now been largely reversed.
The decline of the priesthood as a vocation is particularly pronounced in France, a country that defines itself as secular. Magnificent churches dot the country, but France’s clergy is old and ordinations of priests are in continuing decline. The average age of France’s 14,000 priests is 72.
About 1,600, the number of foreign priests has nearly tripled over the last eight years, with many being recruited to parishes in urban areas and the Parisian suburbs.
