Wills s statistics are not quite officially confirmed, but they are close. The archdiocese of Seattle has posted a Web page on Catholic quick facts . The former are training for the parish priesthood, and the latter are training to join religious orders. The total is under 5,000. As far as parishioners are concerned, those 3,302 are the crucial students who may someday serve their spiritual needs.
Seminary training takes eight years after high school.
The church has over a million baptisms a year. If all of those baptized remain in the church, and if all of this year s seminary graduates remain, the latter will have to minister to a million people. When these newly baptized Catholics are adults, and today s priests reach age 58, that will be 2,500 members per priest, unless present trends change. The American church has 62 million members. It has 31,370 diocesan priests.