The Archdiocese of Baltimore, one of several Catholic dioceses that downsized parishes after filing for bankruptcy amid sex abuse settlements, plans to ordain its largest number of priests in 50 years.
Archbishop William Lori’s official news outlet reported that Baltimore will ordain 12 men as priests next year, up from five this year and the most since the 1970s.
The number of Baltimore seminarians has grown from 28 in 2007 to 52 in 2020 to 66 this year.
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The surge follows years of pain for the archdiocese, which serves more than 500,000 Catholics spread over most of central and western Maryland. It also reflects a national trend in Catholic seminaries gaining priests.
In 2024, the Archdiocese of Baltimore merged 61 parishes into 23, reducing its total to 108. The archdiocese is negotiating a settlement with more than 1,000 abuse victims in U.S. Bankruptcy Court that is expected to run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.
The archdiocese reported in 2023 before the consolidations that 405 priests served 137 parishes.
The Rev. Steven Roth, vocations director for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, said those experiences paradoxically encouraged more men to seek the priesthood to help heal their communities.
“We’re not just taking men who want to be priests, but men who are capable of living the life,” Father Roth said in a phone interview. “They’re not dissuaded by the stories of past sins, but feel stirred to help those who have been hurt.”
He said an increase in young men converting to Catholicism on college campuses has contributed to the trend: The archdiocese received nearly 2,000 converts during the latest Easter season, up from 778 people last year.
Nationwide, the same demographic has driven a surge in conversions to Catholicism, but seminary numbers have been more inconsistent.
Hallow, a Catholic prayer and meditation app with more than 15 million registered users, found in a representative survey of 59 universities that converts seeking baptism and confirmation through campus ministries jumped by 87.6% from the 2024-25 term.
The app reported in March that 140 of the nation’s 175 dioceses expected a 38% annual surge in people converting through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults program during this year’s Easter season.
“It’s encouraging to see this revival extending into religious life vocations, too,” Hallow CEO and co-founder Alex Jones said. “We’ve had two men even just on our team leave to enter seminary in the last year.”
The Official Catholic Directory, which surveys the nation’s Roman Catholic dioceses, found the number of men studying for the priesthood in undergraduate and graduate programs increased from 2,980 in 2024 to 3,035 seminarians early last year. That’s a 1.85% change.
Some individual dioceses have reported substantial gains.
The Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, filed for bankruptcy in 2006 and emerged from it in 2012 after finalizing a $37 million settlement distributed among more than 150 abuse survivors. Its number of seminarians has nearly doubled, from nine last year to 16 this year.
St. Paul Seminary in Minnesota reported that 106 seminarians from 17 dioceses and religious orders studied for the priesthood during the 2025-26 academic year. That’s the highest enrollment in more than a decade and the largest since 1979.
However, it is not clear whether the recent increases point to a larger trend, as seminary numbers have lagged conversions.
“Trends in the number of men entering seminaries can be difficult to track,” said Michael New, a professor of social research at the Catholic University of America.
He noted that some seminarians drop out after completing philosophy credits and four-year collegiate programs, leaving them short of the graduate theology degree they require for ordination.
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Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reported 8% fewer graduate-level seminarians alone in fall 2025, with the number of falling to 2,686 from 2,920 in 2024.
The Rev. Thomas Gaunt, a Jesuit priest who leads the center, said seminary numbers “can vary up or down” depending on the year.
He also said it’s too early to tell whether Pope Leo XIV, who became the first American pontiff last year, has had any effect on seminary recruitment.
“Any impact from having an American pope will take years to be seen,” Father Gaunt said.
Tricia Bruce, a Catholic sociologist affiliated with multiple institutions, noted that Father Gaunt’s center reported that U.S. dioceses ordained 428 men as priests this year. That’s a 6% increase from last year but remains 27% lower than 2017.
“It will take a steady and even more substantial rise to put a dent in the priest shortage the U.S. is experiencing nationwide,” Ms. Bruce said. “But even small increases enable bishops to assign a priest to parishes or ministries that have gone without for years.”
She noted that interviews she conducted with priests for the Catholic Project’s National Study of the Priesthood found that many men joined because they wanted to “bring back a trustworthy voice and leadership for the Church” after years of scandal.
“It’s possible, then, that even public scandal can act as a motivator for Catholic men to enter the priesthood, often as a way to live out faith as an authentic and trustworthy exemplar of how to lead and serve the Church,” Ms. Bruce said.
Bill Hambleton, whom the Diocese of Salt Lake City has acknowledged as a victim of clergy sexual abuse starting at age 16, was ordained a deacon in 2000 but stopped short of priesthood. He said he still rejoices in the increased vocations that dioceses such as Baltimore are seeing.
“This is a generation that gives us hope for reform,” said Mr. Hambleton, chair of religious studies at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in La Canada-Flintridge, California. “I think they’ve learned good and bad lessons from how their bishops have handled transparency and accountability, and they want to help.”
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