Anyone worrying about the bleak vocations picture in the Catholic church might want to reconsider.

It’s not as grim as you may think.

Or so says a Catholic sociologist — and one reason for his optimism is (brace yourself) the growing number of deacons:

James Davidson, a Catholic sociologist of religion from Purdue University in Indiana, believes it’s inaccurate to interpret the shrinking number of priests and a decrease in the number of men and women joining religious communities as a general decline in the Catholic Church.

Instead, he said, rising numbers of deacons and lay ecclesial ministers point to a Catholic Church that is vibrant, though perhaps one that will be led in a different way in the future.

Davidson presented a range of data and offered his conclusions during a workshop Oct. 9 at the National Religious Vocation Conference convocation in Louisville Oct. 9-13.

“The church is being transformed as the social context of the laity is being transformed,” said Davidson, during an interview with The Record, newspaper of the Louisville Archdiocese. “The strength and vitality of the Catholic Church is in its laity.”

Davidson opened his presentation with data that illustrates the decline in the number of vocations to religious life in the United States.

At the same time “the Catholic population in this country,” he said, “has been going up rather steadily. We’re now about a quarter of the U.S. population.”

The Catholic population in the 50 states was less than 50 million in 1979 but grew to more than 59 million in 1999 and 64.4 million today, according to the Official Catholic Directory. That growth has roughly mirrored the rise in total U.S. population, from 218.6 million in 1979 to 232.4 million in 1999 and 300.7 million in 2007.

The number of diocesan priests has dropped from about 35,000 in 1965 to about 28,000 today, according to the directory. Overall, including religious order priests, the numbers are down from about 58,000 in 1965 to about 42,000 today.

There are less than half as many religious brothers today — 5,000 — as there were in 1965, when there were more than 12,000, and women religious have decreased in number from more than 180,000 to about 65,000 today.

Davidson noted that among mainstream churches in the United States the Catholic Church is the only one to see a decrease in clergy. The Episcopal Church has seen a nearly 30 percent increase and the United Methodist Church is up 21 percent. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has had a modest gain of 3 percent.

But he said in “other Catholic vocations the numbers have gone up steadily,” with more deacons and lay ministers. “The church is changing to new circumstances. Catholics are saying they have an alternative” to traditional religious life, he said.

The permanent diaconate was restored by Pope Paul VI in 1967, and it has grown steadily since, said Davidson. In 1975 in the U.S., for example, there were 898 deacons, and by 1985 there were 7,200, he said. Today, nearly 16,000 deacons serve the U.S. church. As far as lay ministers, he said, there were more than 30,000 in 2005, the most recent year for which he had statistics.

Around the world Catholic vocation numbers seem to correlate to a nation’s wealth, Davidson noted.

Vocations to the priesthood in other First World countries are declining in the same way as in the U.S., and in Third World countries vocations are thriving.

But he cautioned against viewing this trend as permanent. In the U.S. in the 1950s and ’60s, vocations were booming, he said, but those were record highs for the country. In the early part of the last century, the church was underserved in the U.S., he said.

There’s much more at the link, so give it a look.