Some readers may have been following on other blogs a debate about how the number of ordinations in the last few years compares with earlier times. It started with the National Office for Vocations publishing some obviously erroneous figures, from which it was asserted that the current numbers are vastly higher than the numbers for the 1930s and 1940s.
After some delving, I found a table of statistics on a website called ukpriest. This is an official website of the National Vocations Office, so should be reasonably reliable. Amongst other figures, it gives the number of priests in England and Wales for each decade from 1841 to 2001, with the exception of the year 1891 which is missing. One presumes that it includes religious as well as secular clergy. Here is the relevent extract:
Year Priests Change
1841 561
1851 826 +265
1861 1165 +339
1871 1551 +386
1881 2498 +947
1891
1901 2856 +358
1911 3766 +910
1921 3989 +223
1931 4484 +495
1941 5838 +1354
1951 6729 +890
1961 7465 +737
1971 7618 +153
1981 7016 - 602
1991 6261 -755
2001 5600 -661
These are numbers of priests, so to get to ordinations, we would need to know the number of priests who die or leave the priesthood each decade. I do not have this information. However, the trend is very obvious. The number of priests increases each decade until 1971after which it decreaseseach decade.
Analysis can only be as good as the raw data, and I have some suspicions about some of the figures. Can anyone explain th big increases indicated in 1881, 1911 and 1941?
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