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Since 1970, the number of Catholic priests in the world has decreased by about 5,000, to 414,313 priests as of 2012. [16] but the worldwide Catholic population has nearly doubled, growing from 653.6 million in 1970 to 1.229 billion in 2012. [16] This has resulted in a worldwide shortage of Catholic priests.
Even a married priest or deacon whose wife dies may not then marry again. The Catholic Church and the ancient Christian Churches see priestly ordination as a sacrament dedicating the ordinand to a permanent relationship of service, and, like Baptism and Confirmation, having an ontological effect on him. It is for this reason that a person may ...
Priests lay their hands on the ordinands during a Catholic rite of ordination. The sacrament of holy orders in the Catholic Church includes three orders: bishops, priests, and deacons, in decreasing order of rank, collectively comprising the clergy. In the phrase "holy orders", the word "holy" means "set apart for a sacred purpose".
clerics regular (priests who take religious vows and have an active apostolic life) Catholic religious orders began as early as the 500s, with the Order of Saint Benedict being formed in 529. The earliest orders include the Cistercians (1098), the Premonstratensians (1120), the Poor Clares founded by Francis of Assisi (1212), and the ...
Cardinal priests (Latin: cardinales presbyteri) are the most numerous of the three orders of cardinals in the Catholic Church, ranking above the cardinal deacons and below the cardinal bishops. [51] Those who are named cardinal priests today are generally also bishops of important dioceses throughout the world, though some hold Curial positions.
The Catholic Church holds that the College of Bishops as a group is the successor of the College of Apostles. The Church also holds that uniquely among the apostles, Saint Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, was granted a role of leadership and authority, giving the pope the right to govern the Church together with the bishops. [42]
Catholic priests in Rome, Italy, 2005 A vajracharya (thunderbolt-carrier), a Newar Buddhist priest Bronze statue of an Egyptian priest, 6th c. BCE, Ephesus Archaeological Museum. A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deities. They ...
While bishops, priests and deacons are ordinary ministers of holy communion, [1] only someone who has been validly ordained as a priest is a minister of the Eucharist. [2] If a priest is, for some reason, debarred [3] and yet celebrates the Eucharist, he does so illicitly (i.e. against canon law), but the Eucharist is still valid.