Staring through the bottom of an empty glass in a bar might not seem like the obvious moment to consider becoming a priest, but it could become the norm under a novel recruitment scheme hatched by the British Catholic Church.
Alarmed at a recent decline in priest numbers, the country’s Catholic hierarchy is to print advertisements seeking new priests on beer mats, the cardboard squares on which drinks rest in pubs and bars.
More conventionally, the advertisements will also run on posters on the London Underground rail system, the BBC reported on Sunday on its website.
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, will raise the problem of priest numbers in his own Westminster diocese in a letter to be read to church congregations, the report said.
Making a plea for change in Westminster on Sunday, the cardinal is also due to warn that many parishes currently may have to cope without a resident priest.
According to the report, the number of priests working in Westminster has fallen from 850 in 1990 to 600 this year, and is expected to drop to 470 over the next decade. — AFP