Enrollment in post-college Roman Catholic seminaries dropped by 4 percent in the past year, according to a new report from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Researchers found 3,285 American priest-candidates studying at seminaries in the current academic year. About 30 percent planned to enter religious orders while the rest were candidates of dioceses.
Enrollment in the college-level category was less than 1,300, the lowest number since the center began collecting statistics in 1968.
U.S. Catholicism has struggled for decades to stem a decline in priests.
In the last academic year, about one in five seminarians were from other countries, the report said.