Boston raises priests’ retirement age to stem shortage

(RNS) Priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston will need to wait an extra five years for retirement under new rules aimed at addressing a persistent clergy shortage. Rules taking effect Aug. 1 raise the retirement age for Boston-area priests from 70 to 75. They do not affect priests who are already retired, and […]

(RNS) Priests in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston will need to wait an extra five years for retirement under new rules aimed at addressing a persistent clergy shortage.

Rules taking effect Aug. 1 raise the retirement age for Boston-area priests from 70 to 75. They do not affect priests who are already retired, and only apply to those men who turn 70 after Aug. 1.

The new rule means priests will need to remain in active ministry until age 75 unless, for health reasons, they apply for and receive “senior priest” status after reaching age 70. Senior priests will be required to fill in for colleagues on vacation or sick leave, or to staff positions on a short-term basis.


Older priests “may well want to be free from administration, which is understandable at a certain age,” said the Rev. Thomas S. Foley, episcopal vicar for parish life and leadership in the archdiocese. “This allows them to just be priests and do the essential ministry of priests as a benefit to the parishes who need as many priests as we can possibly provide.”

For 22 years, Boston priests have been able to retire at 70 to the status of “senior priest in residence,” which usually meant they lived in rectories and helped out with ministry duties only as much as they chose. Now Boston’s archdiocese — the nation’s fourth largest, with 1.8 million Catholics — has reached a point where it needs elder priests to be available to multiple parishes, even if they don’t live in rectories.

Since the 1960s, Boston has seen its priestly ranks decline 50 percent, from about 1,500 to 756 today. Forty-four percent of those priests are age 70 or older. Among those older priests, 75 percent are retired, including about half of those between the ages of 70 and 75.

By serving as parochial vicars, or assistant pastors, older priests will now share some of the workload that has increasingly fallen to resident priests, Foley said. Others might serve in more limited capacities, he said, but still perform much-needed functions.

“These senior priests would just be expected to come in and celebrate the Masses and the sacraments,” Foley said, “so that the most basic and most important aspects of parish life would be able to continue in the absence of the pastor.”

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