Vatican Forced To Turn to Third World for New Priests

ROME — Jess Marquina Marano is a godsend for Pope Benedict XVI.

The 41-year-old Filipino head of the parish of Nostra Signora di Fatima, in a working-class area of Rome, does a job the pope can't find an Italian to do. With a dearth of local priests, the Vatican is turning to Asian, African, and Latin American clergy for churches in the shadow of St. Peter's Basilica.

The shortage reflects the faith's decline in Europe and America amid unpopular stances on issues such as contraception, abortion, and women in the church. The demographic shift among the world's 1 billion Roman Catholics raises the possibility that the next pope will be the first non-European pontiff and may threaten the Holy See's $271 million annual budget, most of which comes from Catholics in America and Europe.

"The future of the Church is clearly in the developing world," a theology professor at Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, Kevin Pecklers, said. "The Vatican very much looks to the U.S. for financial help. If Americans stopped giving, it would be very deeply felt by the Vatican."

Some bishops say easing the ban on celibacy or allowing women into the priesthood might help the vocation appeal to more Catholics in America and Europe.

Pope Benedict XVI has made it clear that those changes aren't in the cards. Just days before being named pope, he said in a Rome sermon that the Catholic Church must not surrender to a "dictatorship of relativism."

In the five years through 2002, the Catholic population increased 22% in Africa and 5% in Asia, a Vatican news agency, Fides, reported. In Europe, the number of Catholics declined 1% during the same period.

The number of priests in Europe and North America dropped 5% and 6%, respectively, between 1999 and 2004, the Statistical Yearbook of the Church shows. Asia's priesthood grew 13% and Africa's 18%.

The Vatican finds itself turning more and more to non-Europeans like Mr. Marquina Marano, who is from the Philippines. Mr. Marquina Marano, who graduated from the Lateran University in Rome in 1996, prays in Italian and speaks the language with a slight accent. Since taking over the parish in September, Mr. Marquina Marano said he's been making home visits with the parishioners and developing community contacts.The cleric attributes his decision to remain in Rome to a vision by his mother, who dreamed she saw him wearing black robes.