Lenten Campaign 2025
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The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seoul, South Korea, held an ordination ceremony on February 7 that saw 26 new priests added to their ranks. The ordination brought their number of priests in active ministry up to the quadruple digits, which led to the archdiocese excitedly dubbing the Jubilee Year of Hope as the beginning of the “era of 1,000 priests.”
According to the Catholic Bishops of the Philippines, South Korea has ordained more than 7,000 priests in its history; the first being St. Andrew Kim Taegon, who received holy orders in 1845. This means that over the last 180 years, the country has averaged nearly 39 priests per year. Currently, South Korea has an estimated 5,721 priests in active ministry throughout the nation's 16 dioceses.
Seoul will be the host city of the next World Youth Day, in 2027.
This is the first time the Archdiocese of Seoul has reached such a milestone, which puts it among the dioceses with the most priests in the world, the first being the Archdiocese of Milan, Italy, with around 1,700 priests.
Seoul has an average of about 1,385 faithful per priest. (Milan's average is 2,086; the small diocese of Wichita, Kansas, which has the highest rate of new priests in the USA has an average of just 933 Catholics per priest. The archdiocese of Mexico has 3,481, and Kinshasa in Democratic Republic of Congo has 10,352 faithful per priest.)
Fides spells out the average by continent, with these numbers from 2024:
An African priest has an average of 5,077 faithful (compared with 5,101 the previous year).
In America (keep in mind this includes North and South), there are 5,592 faithful per priest. Asia shows a slight improvement, with 2,111 faithful per priest, compared with 2,137 in 2022. Europe is the best served region, with one priest for every 1,812 faithful.
Constant joy
The February 7 ordination was presided over by Archbishop Jeong Sun-taek at the archdiocese’s Myeongdong Cathedral, where he urged the new priests to conduct their ministries with “love and constant joy.”
“Priests are called to serve the people of God as co-workers of the bishop, united with the bishop through their priesthood,” Archbishop Sun-taek said in his homily. “Remember that you were chosen and appointed for people, from among people, to do the work of God,” and “always take as your example the Good Shepherd who came not to be served but to serve, and to seek out and save the lost sheep.”
Among the newly ordained priests was only the second deaf priest to ever be ordained in Asia, Father Kim Dong-jun. At the event, he expressed his excitement to begin his ministry at Ephatha Parish, the first diocese in South Korea to cater to the hearing-impaired, as well as the Aehwa School in Seoul:
"I want to [provide a] ministry that conveys sensitivity and warmth for the weak to the hearing (non-disabled) culture in the way of Jesus Christ,” Fr. Dong-jun expressed.
