Tayside’S LEADING Roman Catholic churchman has responded to claims that the Catholic Church will have to change its most traditional beliefs to halt a dramatic decline in the number of people training to become priests.

Bishop Vincent Logan, the Bishop of Dunkeld, spoke out after Catholic academic Professor Noel Timms said the Church would have to think about ordaining women and look at the issue of celibacy.

Professor Timms said the recruitment crisis had worsened in the three years since he forecast the halving of the priesthood in the next 10-15 years. He claimed the demand that men commit to a life without sex is at the heart of the problem.

While Bishop Logan agreed the number of men entering Scotland’s two Catholic seminaries, which provide the six years of training needed to become a priest, had diminished considerably, he said changing the position on celibacy or female ordination was not the answer.

“Celibacy is an issue, it is a difficult thing for people in this age to commit to,” he said.

“However, other churches that do allow marriage are experiencing the same recruitment problem, so I don’t believe changing our stance on this issue is a solution.

“If you look at society, fewer people are giving themselves to a life-long commitment—that includes priesthood and also marriage itself.

“The church has never ordained women. The whole tradition is the ordination of men. I don’t see any change to that.”

Bishop Logan said the Church is looking at ways to combat the decline, including a new national commission, Priests for Scotland, of which he is president.

“This initiative has been launched in Scotland to replace the existing National Vocations Commission and the Priestly Formation Commission.

“It is an attempt to look at the picture in a bigger, more dramatic way. We are not saying this will change things, as it is God who calls people into the priesthood, but it is an attempt to establish a climate in the whole community of Scotland where vocations to priesthood would flourish.”

Ten men are to enter the two Scottish seminaries, Scotus College in Glasgow and Scots College in Rome, this year. While this is more than treble the number who entered in 2002 and 2003, it is still considerably less than in the ’80s.

Of these 10, none came from the Diocese of Dunkeld, which includes Dundee—a fact that Bishop Logan finds very disappointing. “It takes six years to become a priest, and at the moment we have two in training,” he said.

Bishop Logan said the Diocese of Dunkeld contains a number of priests who will be retiring in the next 10 years, and a lack of priests may see the linking of parishes.

However he said the level of pastoral care being offered by the church was good.

A Scottish Catholic Church spokesperson said, “The active population of Catholics in Scotland is 230,000, which means there is around one priest to every 300 members of the congregation. And that is the key point. We are very happy with that.”