Vatican: worldwide boom in seminary vocations!

The drop in priestly vocations in the West, according to the Vatican, often has the unfortunate effect of overshadowing the worldwide "boom" in vocations the Church is experiencing in other parts of the world:

In fact, during John Paul II's pontificate the number of major seminarians has virtually doubled, the secretary of the Congregation for Clergy, Archbishop Csaba Ternyak, said when presenting to the press the Pope's Holy Thursday Letter to Priests:

In 1978, when John Paul II was elected, there were 63,882 major seminarians in the world. In 2001 there were 112,982.

"Never in the history of the Church have we had so many seminarians studying philosophy and theology," Archbishop Ternyak said.

[Thanks to Gerard for story from Zenit, April 6, 2004]