The average age of ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood has risen and the percentage of foreign-born among the newly ordained has also increased, a new survey has found.
A study of the 2003 ordination class found the average age jumped from 34.8 to 36.8 in the last five years, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose Vocations Office commissioned the report. About 10 percent of the men were age 50 or older.
Over the same period, the share of new priests from other countries rose from 24 percent to 28 percent, with the greatest percentage coming from Vietnam and Mexico, according to the May 1 report.
Still, the majority of those ordained were of European-American descent and born in the United States. About 14 percent were Hispanic.
The survey was conducted by Dean Hoge, a sociologist from The Catholic University of America who has studied the priesthood for three decades. He used data from questionnaires filled out as of March 31 by 348 of about 500 members of the ordination class.