Beyond that core role though, changes within churches and the culture, combined with the decreasing number of men entering the priesthood in the last few decades, have had lasting effects on the life of a priest, said Fr. Bruce Bavinger, S.J., assistant pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Rocky Mount, North Carolina “We have been used to smaller numbers. I have been used to hearing that there were smaller numbers in the seminaries from the time I entered. The sexual abuse scandals did not help at all either,” said Bavinger, who has been a priest for 30 years.
Despite substantial growth in the Catholic population, the number of men entering the priesthood in the United States significantly has decreased in the last three decades. The total has gone down from 58,909 in 1975 to 40,580 in 2008, says the Web site for the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, a nonprofit research center that conducts studies on the Catholic Church.
There were 652 Catholics per priest in 1950, the site says. By 2000, that number had soared to 1,257.
Things are slightly different for Bavinger...Bavinger is a Jesuit, a member of the Society of Jesus. They dedicated themselves to the church and and celibacy, but Bavinger also took a vow of poverty. Everything he has belongs to the order, and he is allowed to use it.
“I still kind of live a normal life, making purchases, but pretty much with permission as far as any big items,” Bavinger said. “I am living the same kind of life that a lot of people are, kind of a middle class life. I have access to a TV, and I have my own laptop. That was a gift to me from another parish I was in. I was allowed to keep it.”
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