Axios
Fewer Americans want to become pastors , accelerating a leadership vacuum inside one of the country's oldest civic institutions. Why it matters: As the pastor role becomes lower-paid, higher-risk and less trusted, the U.S. isn't just losing clergy — it's losing a key layer of local leadership, especially in rural and Black communities. By the numbers: U.S. Master of Divinity enrollment at accredited schools under the Association of Theological Schools (ATS) fell 14% from 2020 to 2024. Graduate-level and college-level enrollment at Catholic seminaries were down significantly in the 2024-2025 academic year, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University said. Black Protestant enrollment in ATS Master of Divinity and professional M.A. programs fell 31% from 2000 to 2020. State of play: Churches are trying to fill pulpits as older clergy retire, congregations shrink and burnout rises. More than 4 in 10 clergy surveyed in fall 2023 said they had seriously considered leaving their congregations since 2020, per Hartford Institute data reported by The Associated Press. The leadership crunch comes as the U.S. saw 15,000 churches close last year and as a record 29% of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated. Zoom in: Rural churches are hit first because many already share pastors, rely on part-time clergy or ask one minister to cover multiple congregations. When those churches close, towns can lose informal hubs for food aid, child care, disaster relief and elder care. Zoom out: The Black church also faces a squeeze. The Brookings Institution notes Black churches have long acted as public-health and community-service infrastructure in places underserved by government systems. Catholic parish closures have also fallen disproportionately on Black, Latino and poorer neighborhoods in dioceses studied by researchers. Case-in-point: Last month, the Diocese of Oakland announced it would close 13 churches in its region due to financial struggles and declining parishioners. The Diocese also said in a statement it's struggled to recruit priests and has faced an "all-time low of priests assigned to our 80 parishes." What they're saying: The drop is part of the "decline of Protestantism in the U.S. Catholicism is pretty much in the same boat," Eileen Campbell-Reed, author of " Pastoral Imagination : Bringing the Practice of Ministry to Life , " and a research professor at Vanderbilt Divinity School, tells Axios. Campbell-Reed said the strain of the pandemic — layered on long-term decline — pushed many clergy out of ministry and discouraged new entrants. In addition, political polarization pushed some out. "It's harder and harder to be the pastor of a 'purple church.'" Caveat: Pentecostalism is one of the few parts of U.S. Christianity still growing overall, but that does not necessarily mean the pastor pipeline is healthy. The largest U.S. Pentecostal body, the Assemblies of God, reported continued growth in attendance (+6.2%) and adherents (+2.5%) in its latest report . It's a mixed picture, though: membership and churches are rising in some groups, while leadership supply is uneven and increasingly strained. The intrigue: Campbell-Reed and Good Faith Media showed 96,000 clergywomen in the U.S., or 23.7% of all clergy, an all-time high. Campbell-Reed's earlier research found women were 2.3% of U.S. clergy in 1960 and 20.7% in 2016. What we're watching: The rapid growth of the Catholic Church in Asia and Africa — and a priest shortage in the U.S. — has led the church to send a rising number of priests from those regions to the U.S. Priests from Africa have been noticeably more visible in Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado. Meanwhile, Massachusetts and California are seeing more Asian priests in parishes.
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