ALUVA, KERALA, INDIA, December 30, 2008: Catholics represent a tiny proportion of the population in India. But among them, young men willing to join the Catholic priesthood are plentiful, unlike in the United States and Europe. As a result, bishops trek here from the United States, Europe, Latin America and Australia looking for spare priests to fill their empty pulpits.
At least 800 Indian priests are working in the United States alone. India, Vietnam and the Philippines are among the leading exporters of priests, according to data compiled by researchers at Catholic University of America in Washington.
In Birmingham, Alabama, where four Indian priests serve, the former local bishop arranged about seven years ago to pay their original Indian Diocese of Irinjalakuda $5,000 a year for each borrowed priest, an official in the Indian diocese said. Many Indian bishops have such arrangements, giving them a motive other than generosity to loan out their priests.
The rectors of both large seminaries in Aluva, with over 400 students each, each said in separate interviews that the Catholic church in the United States and Europe would eventually need to stop relying on India to supply priests.