Evangelicals consider drop in Catholic priestly vocations

MEXICO CITY, México, April 10, 2007

The Mexican daily newspaper Reforma, in its April 7 edition, quotes members of Evangelical churches Taxi Heathrow Airport on their attributing the increase in pastors and the decrease of priests to the “errors committed by the Catholic Church and the lack of participation of its members.”

The news story by journalist Leslie Gómez publishes the statements made by Pastor Ricardo Moreno, who says that: “The Catholic Church has lost a lot as a result of some errors, not only in the work of evangelization, but also because of the bad conduct on the part of some priests.”

The General Office for Religious Associations of the Ministry of the Interior, has registered little more than 19 thousand ministers of the Catholic tradition who, in theory, are to attend to around 90 million baptized persons, which means that each priest is responsible for more than 4,700 members. It is necessary to remember that Mexico is historically the most Catholic country in Latin America and that recently there has been an increase in the number of cases presented of religious discrimination against Evangelicals in some states.

Oscar Moha, an Evangelical lay person and member of the National Association of Christian Lawyers, pointed out to the Reforma newspaper that the number of pastors is even much greater that what is officially reported, even though many of the pastors do not have a more professional training. “There is a good number registered because there are many ‘on the spur of the moment’ pastors who do not have a good methodology of study and training, but who register themselves as pastors,” said Moha.

Another of the causes that the newspaper quotes in accounting for the fall in the number of Catholic vocations and the increase in the Evangelical is the time of preparation that each activity requires. The priesthood, it is said, requires nine years of study and practice, while the pastorate only requires five at most.

Abner López, President of the Bible Society of Mexico and an Evangelical pastor, assured the newspaper that the way in which the Evangelical communities evangelize is much more direct than that of the Roman Catholic Church.