‘Let’s talk’ plea to bishops about vocations crisis

A body representing over 1,000 Catholic priests has called on bishops to open up dialogue with their members to find a solution to the vocations crisis.

In a report published following their annual general meeting last week, the Association of Catholic Priests’ members rejected the strategy of ‘clustering’ as the answer to the decline in priest numbers.

In response to the falling numbers of ordained clerics, Catholic Church leaders have resorted to clustering — the process of amalgamating parishes into larger units — across most dioceses in the country.