In the years immediately following the Second Vatican Council, the number of Catholic priests in the United States began to decline precipitously. Thousands of men left ministry and the number of men entering seminary to replace them began to shrink rapidly.
According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown, there were 59,192 Catholic priests in the United States in 1970. By 2020, that number had fallen to 35,513. The number of seminarians followed a similar trend. In 1970, there were 805 ordinations. By 2000, the number of ordinations had fallen to 442.
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