(RNS) Roman Catholic seminarians will get a financial boost in 2010 from a charitable organization targeting a chronic shortage of education funding in America’s fastest-growing dioceses.

The Catholic Church Extension Society on Tuesday (Dec. 22) announced more than $3 million in grants next year to help train 509 seminarians. That represents more than a 100 percent increase from 2006, when the group contributed $1.5 million for seminary education.

Funds will go to 32 dioceses, mostly in the South and West, where Catholic populations are growing fast. In Nevada, for instance, the Catholic population has swelled by 111 percent since 1990, according to CCES.

“Educating the next generation of Catholic leadership is critical, especially for those areas of the country where the Catholic population is growing yet parishes and residential pastoral ministers are few,” said Joseph Boland, grants director for Catholic Extension.

Boland said the grants aim to boost vocations in “poor and isolated areas where the future of the church is unfolding.”

Catholic populations are growing fastest in 84 “mission dioceses,” which include the poorest and most remote regions of the country. Funds for training future clergy are scarcest in these dioceses, where educating a seminarian costs an estimated $30,000 per year.

CCES grants will educate about 15 percent of seminarians in the targeted dioceses, from Covington, Ky., to Juneau, Alaska. Recipients will also include the Archdiocese of Military Services, as well as dioceses in Puerto Rico and the Samoan Islands.