Catholics face a shortage of priests. But one Indonesian seminary is overwhelmed with applicants

MAUMERE, Indonesia (AP) — Arnoldus Yansen thought for certain he was going to become a Catholic priest, just like his older brother, cousin and uncle.

He attended St. Peter Major Seminary, a bastion of priestly vocations located in the middle of a jungle on Flores, a predominantly Catholic island in Muslim-majority Indonesia. Known familiarly as Ritapiret Seminary, St. Peter Major has produced 13 bishops, more than 580 diocesan priests and 23 deacons in nearly 70 years of existence.

But Yansen won’t be among them. He tried to shake off what he thought were last-minute jitters before entering the priesthood. Instead, Yansen took off his clerical robes for good and joined the hundreds of prospective priests who resign or fail to take up Catholic vocations every year in Indonesia.

“I felt like I didn’t fit in anymore and that I would be able to do more if I left,” said Yansen, 26, who is now an administrator at a Catholic school, Ledalero Institute of Philosophy and Creative Technology.

Pope Francis’ upcoming trip to Indonesia is putting a spotlight on the 8.6 million Catholics who make up 3% of the population. It’s a country where religious minorities remain on edge due to militant attacks that have targeted faith groups.

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More men are entering seminary, but Yansen and others like him show that Indonesia is not immune from trends contributing to the Catholic Church’s global priest shortage, including fallout from the clergy sex abuse crisis and the pull of the fast-paced modern world.

“The number of priests is never enough,” said the Rev. Guidelbertus Tanga, rector of St. Peter Major Seminary, which is considered the largest Catholic seminary in the world by enrollment.

In Indonesia, there 2,466 diocesan priests in Indonesia in 2022, up from 2,203 in 2017, according to Vatican statistics as of Dec. 31, 2022, the last year for which data is available. That number is supplemented by even more religious order priests, such as Jesuits or Franciscans, whose numbers reached 3,437 in 2022.

But Tanga noted that Indonesia’s population growth is outpacing priesthood vocations. “We will continue to face a shortage of priests in the future if nothing is done now.”

Asia, along with Africa, has long been seen as the future of the Catholic Church, both in terms of the number of baptized faithful and the number of men and women who decide to become priests or nuns.

The Philippines and India outpace Indonesia. But compared to all of Asia, the number of seminarians in Indonesia is growing while it levels off or declines across the continent.

While the Catholic Church is faced with priest-less parishes in many parts of the world, Ritapiret Seminary is overwhelmed with applicants.

Men training to be diocesan priests typically spend six to eight years in the seminary, and two years of pastoral work, before ordination. Less than 20 seminarians can be ordained each year, Tanga said.

“To answer God’s calling and to choose a life as (a) priest remain something fascinating for people in this region,” Tanga said. “And yet we still appeal (to) youths to have courage to make a decision to take up church vocation, and the support from their families and society.”

He knows monastic life isn’t for everyone. Some consider taking up a vocation to be too dull when compared to more modern ways of life.

Tanga said seminaries are now being challenged to brand and promote themselves to encourage young people to become priests. The school with 62 lecturers — more than half of whom are priests — is now a college where the public can study digital technology, economics, and how to become Catholic religion teachers.

During Pope John Paul II’s visit to Indonesia in 1989, he hailed the faithfulness of people in Flores and the flourishing number of priests and nuns. He praised the seminarians in Ritapiret, saying: “You must also understand that faithful service to Christ and his Church will not always earn you the world’s praise. On the contrary, you will sometimes receive the same treatment as the Lord: rejection, contempt, and even persecution.”

Now a saint, the room he spent the night in at the seminary has become a spiritual tourism destination.

Inosentius Mansur, who is on the seminary staff, said their data shows that the Catholic priest shortage is not caused by a loss of resources, but by a “loss of moral commitment.”

Sex abuse scandals and other unflattering news reports emerging from the Vatican and elsewhere contributed to Yansen’s decision to leave the path to priesthood, he said.

Beyond the internal challenges, violent attacks are also a concern of the church in Indonesia. Although the country promotes itself as a bastion of tolerance in the Muslim world, a small extremist fringe has become more vocal in recent years.

In 2021, a militant couple blew themselves up outside a packed Catholic cathedral on Indonesia’s Sulawesi island during a Palm Sunday Mass, wounding at least 20 people.

Bishop Siprianus Hormat of Ruteng said he still believes that most Indonesians are tolerant unless something triggers a conflict, and that the country has a pluralist society that respects freedom of religion.

“In general, acts or behaviors of intolerance are still there, but on a small scale,” Hormat said. “This is actually not a problem that is purely related to religious issue, but it was used to fuel people’s anger to oppress their political rivals or those who don’t agree with them.”

Though religious freedom is protected by Indonesia’s constitution, members of religious minorities and atheists have been increasingly subjected to discrimination.

“Diversity of Indonesia is a reality that we cannot deny,” Hormat said. “We cannot tolerate any actions that aim to eliminate certain religion or race from this country.”

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its annual report in January that blasphemy allegations and convictions remain persistent religious freedom violations throughout Indonesia.

The report said a new criminal code that will be implemented in 2026 will further criminalize blasphemy and expand on other violations. There also are concerns about local government initiatives to codify discrimination against minority communities gaining traction. In some schools, there are religious clothing mandates, including wearing a hijab, even for non-Muslim girls.

“We believe in what Jesus said, that even though this world ends, my kingdom there will be no end,” said Tanga, the seminary’s rector, adding that the Catholic Church, though it has been through crises before, “will never become extinct.”

“It means the vocations to become a priest and dedication to the service of Christ and his church will never wane,” he said.

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Associated Press writer Nicole Winfield in Rome contributed to this report.

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