Burnout increases in church leadership as number of ordained priests shrinks

By Natalie Demaree, December 12, 2022

After three back-to-back morning mass services, the Rev. Daniel Kearney sank into a floral-patterned chair, eye-lids heavy with fatigue. Tired as he was, his work day wasn’t yet finished.

At the Church of the Ascension in Manhattan, where Kearney’s been the pastor for eleven years, he leads two mass services every weekday and five weekend mass services, including one on Saturday evening and four on Sunday, he said.

The quantity of services is both physically and spiritually draining, said Kearney. “When you’re just doing it so many times on a Sunday, it’s not prayerful anymore,” he said.

Kearney’s feelings are representative of pastors across the nation who’ve been struggling with unprecedented levels of burn out. As of March 2022, 42% of pastors have considered quitting full-time ministry within the past year, up 13 percentage points from 2021, according to a recent study from Barna, a non-partisan research organization.

Some of this burnout may be a result of a shrinking population of priests, Kearney said, adding that he’s concerned by the lack of discussion about this trend in church leadership.

According to a study by Georgetown’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, the number of ordained priests has decreased by 41% in the last 50 years.

Kearney’s church doesn’t have a plan in place in case he were to miss a Sunday because of the shortage, he said.

While he hopes church leaders will begin to have conversations about the future of the church with these issues in mind, he hasn’t been involved in any of these discussions yet, he said.

Nevertheless, Kearney tries to stay energized by his passion for the people in his parish, he said. “I find the people here very uplifting, very life-giving,” said Kearney.