Trends in Catholic Priesthood Theology

Uh, you posted this graph on X recently.

Among Catholic priests ordained in the late 1960s,

post-Vatican II,

68% described their theology as progressive, and

just 16% said conservative. Among priests ordained in

the last few years, a whopping 84%

call themselves conservative in their theology, and just two

percent progressive. Now, Ryan, you write that the priesthood will

likely be almost completely homogenous within 30 years.

How so, and what does this tell us?

Yeah, this might be the most dramatic data point

in the entire book, um, out of,

you know-

Yeah

... the 30 or 40 graphs I put in there.

I mean, the Catholic priesthood used to be fairly

politically diverse and

theologically diverse. You had progressives, you had moderates,

you had

conservatives, you had liberals, you had conservatives, you know,

politically

speaking. And now, the future of the Catholic priesthood

is conservative,

overwhelmingly conservative. You know, only 2% of priests ordained,

uh, in America in the last five years, uh, describe themselves as progressive or

liberal, uh, politically or theologically.

And, you know, 80-plus percent identify as conservative.

I think it's, it's showing you the kind of people

that are being drawn to the

priesthood in Catholicism now are overwhelmingly conservative, and

are only

becoming more conservative as they work their way through seminary.

And I think also part of that in the Catholic Church

is the number of, uh, priests

coming from outside the United States, Central and South America, and,

and Africa.

A lot of those priests who come to America are already conservative in their

theology and politics, and they're just bringing

that with them when they come to

the United States.