Vatican City (AsiaNews)  - At  the press conference organized to present the Pope John Paul II's Letter to Priests, Msgr. Csaba Ternyak, secretary to the Congregation for the Clergy,  painted a positive and negative picture of the situation of the clergy throughout the world, giving some signs of hope.

In doing so he compared figures taken in 2001 (the latest available) with those from 1961.

In 1961 the total number of priests worldwide was 404.082 (excluding bishops and deacons). Today, however, there are slightly more at 405,067.

The largest drop was registered in Europe  (from 250,859 to 206,765) and North America (from 71,725 to 57,988). Yet an increase was recorded in Latin America (from 43,202 to 63,159); Africa (from 16,541 to 27,988); and in Asia (from 25,535 to 44,446). "The drop found in some Western countries is related to the local population progressively getting older, to the worrying phenomenon of less births and finally to the increase of secularism in cultures," said Msgr. Ternyak.       

The rise in the number of clergy on other continents depends on aspects of culture "where procreation is still meaningful and where culture is less eroded by religious crisis", he said.

Contributing to the rise in vocations has been the witness of the current pope. With respect to the beginning of his pontificate, there are more seminarians now than before, almost doubling (112,982 compared to 63,882 25 years ago).

Another positive sign, according to Msgr. Ternyak, is the solidity of current vocations with respect to those of a quarter century ago. At the beginning of his papacy Pope John Paul II "the percentage of seminarians we gave up on becoming priests was 9.09%". Currently "this percentage has fallen to 6.93%." Throughout the Church's history," the prelate said, "we have never had so many seminaries students of philosophy and theology (as we do now."   

Msgr. Ternyak stressed that for their to be an efficacious pastoral vocation among young men there must be families who pray and priests who direct youth, calling them to follow in their example/  

And taking ispiration from what the Pope said in his Letter to Priests regarding attention to altar servers, the prelate said that "for many years us priests today, as parish altar servers in parish, (serving) was a chance to discover and develop our vocations, as even the pope himself tells in his own personal story."