Philippines badly needs priests. Could a Filipino pope boost clergy ranks?

As cardinals gather in the Vatican to elect a new pope – with a Filipino among the favourites – the church in Asia’s most Catholic country is grappling with a decline in those with a vocation for the priesthood.

“According to the statistics we have … one priest is catering to around 9,000 Catholics,” John Alfred Rabena, chancellor of UST Central Seminary, one the country’s oldest, said this week.

It is a situation that was leading to “exhaustion” among an overworked clergy, he said during a visit to the seminary’s art deco building on the sprawling University of Santo Tomas campus.

Father Robert Reyes, a well-known activist priest, said he sounded the alarm during his 1987-98 tenure as national vocation director of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).