June 8, 1998

Deterred by the hard life, an increasing number of Kerala youth choose not to be priests and nuns.

By M G Radhakrishnan

At 25, he was expected to know his mind. Unlike the usual teenage entrants into the world of "poverty, chastity and obedience" (the three vows Roman Catholic priests and nuns take), Joseph Paul was a postgraduate when he decided to become a priest. But after six years in the seminary, he had had enough. Last year he threw in the towel, and is now joining an Ernakulam college as a lecturer. "I found myself incapable of sustaining it," says Paul who hopes to get married next year. "I prefer a life of more freedom and less harsh discipline than the one observed by priests. Most important, I wanted to marry and have a family life." Kerala has obviously changed. While in the past his entire community -- even his family -- would have derided him, today, Paul has been welcomed back with open arms. "There is no stigma anymore," he says.

One more dropout, one less priest. When Paul left the seminary, he simply added to the growing number of Roman Catholic youngsters from Kerala who are opting out of religious life, or simply refusing to consider it in the first place. The trend is significant since Kerala's Roman Catholics form 35 per cent of the 40 lakh-strong community in the country. It is through the land of the coconut palm that Christianity found its way into India in the 1st century a.d.; and it is here that India's Roman Catholics -- the largest Christian sect in the country -- have found more than half of their 15,000 priests and 65,000 nuns. The transformation of the socio-economic landscape in Kerala over the past decade has inevitably had a nationwide impact.

"The golden age of the vocations from Kerala seems to be over," says Father Jose Kuriedath of the Church Mission of India (CMI) congregation who studied the phenomenon. Statistics show that while the number of new entrants has increased in real terms from 2,263 in 1975 to about 4,000 in 1997, the dropout rate has also risen: from 70 per cent in the '70s to 85 per cent now. Kuriedath finds a parallel in the past. "Developed countries have faced these problems in the past and have compensated the fall by large-scale recruitment from Third World countries like India," he points out. Now, the trend has come full circle.

The dramatic decline in the state's population growth rate and the emergence of nuclear families are considered the main reasons. Kuriedath's survey indicates that 90 per cent of priests and nuns in Kerala are from families with more than three children. Rapid urbanisation -- and the consequent shift away from agricultural professions -- the spread of literacy, education and increase in incomes among the Roman Catholic community have added to the church's problems. Kuriedath's study shows that over 70 per cent of priests and nuns are from farming families; over 75 per cent belong to families where the parents are not educated and are from the lower echelons of society.

The decline is not in numbers alone. There was a time when a majority of Catholic priests and nuns from Kerala had brilliant academic backgrounds. As many as 40.6 per cent of the men and 60.8 per cent of the women surveyed by Kuriedath had obtained just a third class in their school-leaving examinations. As a result, many important posts in church-run schools and hospitals -- once occupied by highly qualified nuns and priests -- have either remained unfilled or have gone to the laity.

Interestingly, not all church leaders are worried. Says Archbishop Mar George Valiyamattom of the Thalassery archdiocese: "It is good that only those who are totally committed remain, and we encourage those who are inclined to leave." Whatever the stand of the optimists among its leaders, if the Roman Catholic community wishes to attract more bright youngsters, it needs to relax its rules. According to Kuriedath, the most significant reason cited by those who drop out is the suffocating restrictions placed on them by an outdated system: continuation of the old philosophical and theological education, too much discipline, and too little contact with the outside world. For instance, "Why shouldn't every convent have minimal modern amenities like a television?" asks Sister Agnes, first adviser to the mother superior, Carmelite Religious Congregation, Thiruvananthapuram. And then of course, there is the vow of celibacy.

The Roman Catholic Church is the only Christian church that still clings to this rule, across all ages and levels in the hierarchy. "It is a difficult vow to keep though I feel this makes the priest's commitment to God total. But there is a growing trend among the junior priests to do away with this vow as it happened in the West," says Father E. Wilfred, the rector of a seminary, in a moment of candour. Not everyone agrees. "If celibacy is a deterrent to taking up priesthood, why is there no rush to those churches which do not adhere to it?" asks Monsignor M. Joseph, vicar-general of the Latin diocese of Thiruvananthapuram. In fact, a number of church leaders believe that the decline in vocations is a direct fallout of the materialistic values inherent in modern society coupled with the mass-media blitz. "Career-conscious families, where both the father and mother go out to work, have caused a major crisis in their children's faith formation," says Father Chandy Paul, director, Commission for Family Apostolates and head of the Vocation Promotion Bureau attached to the Thiruvananthapuram diocese. Paul is one of those involved in organising "special campaigns to resist these developments". The effort is to find more intelligent, educated and dedicated youngsters willing to lead a life of poverty, chastity and obedience. Until then, the church must live with its own poverty: that of numbers.

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