There is a demographic winter and also a winter of vocations in the seminaries. The first affects all of Spain and Córdoba most severely; The second is much less crude, much gentler, in the diocese, which is seeing a decrease in the number of vocations. … maintains and how new priests are ordained each year. “You won the lottery,” he told her. Démetrio Fernándezbishop of Córdoba from 2010 to 2025, to Jesús Fernández, who is his successor in the diocese since May.
The figures prove it: the province of Córdoba represents 1.57 percent of the population of all of Spain, while 4.7 percent of the new priests.
The Bishop of Córdoba, Jesús Fernández, will preside this Monday at noon in the Cathedral over his first ordination since his inauguration last May. More precisely, five people receive the order of the diaconateand from there they will arrive, if their path is successful, to the priesthood.
Their names are Jesús Romera, Blas Sánchez, Angelo Bruno, José Agustín González and Ángel González and they will be the protagonists of the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception.
The data of Spanish Episcopal Conference They assure that during the last academic year 2024-2025, the last available, there were 1,036 candidates for the priesthood in Spain, including 239 new entrants. In Cordoba, there are now 48 in the major seminarfollowing a trend that has continued in recent years.
In total, they represent 4.79 percent of all candidates for the priesthood in Spain. In recent years they have always been between 40 and 50, which places them only below Madrid and Toledo and especially other dioceses like Seville, with a much larger population.
This is the tone of a diocese where the flame of religious vocation It has been maintained despite the advance of secularization and the decline of religious practice. Thus, in recent years the number of young or elderly people entering seminaries has continued to decline throughout Spain, while it has remained stable in Córdoba.
Evolution Shows highs and lows depending on the year, but a tendency towards stability: in the 2021/22 academic year they were 57, while the following year they fell to 47. In 2022/23 they were 40 and in the 2023/24 academic year they reached 41. They then increased to 44, then to 48, which now passes the studies.
Territories
In the 2019/20 academic year there were 1,128 nationwide and from there they fell to 1,066, 1,028, 974 and 956 in the 2023/2024 academic year, the least attended of which we have news. However, in 2024/2025 this figure increased to 1,036, with 239 new entries. In Cordoba, he did not come down from forty in any of these years. The minor seminary is less attended, but in recent years it has welcomed 14, 13, 11 and 14 candidates. All this also flourishes in ordinations.
Until 2019, the Spanish Episcopal Conference published data broken down by seminary according to the number of people trained there. In Cordoba there were then 58, of the 39 they were at the conciliar seminary of San Pelagio and 19 others at the seminary Redemptoris Mater San Juan de Ávila, also diocesan but linked to the Neocatechumenal Way.
It was the fourth diocese in Spain, behind Madrid, in a territory that only includes the city, with 72; Toledo, with 65, and Seville, where there were 62. Córdoba is thus consolidated as the second diocese of Andalusia, although with a much higher ratio than that of Seville, which has twice as many inhabitants. Others, like Malagaalso with a much higher population, barely reached 13, while in Granada there were 31. The diocese of Cartagena, which covers the entire territory of the Region of Murcia and a population of 1.6 million inhabitants, had 38.
The situation contrasts with what has been observed in other dioceses with a much larger population, such as Barcelonawhich had 35 seminarians, a low number compared to its population, but much higher than what was happening in the rest of the Catalan territories, which barely reached ten. Bilbaoin another fairly populated territory, was at 11, while Santiago de Compostela was at 22.
The path to the priesthood and the way in which the vocation materializes are always difficult, which is why few people become priests. A good replacement situation is not achieved, because there are always more people they die or those who have to retire and stop taking on a large part of their tasks, but their number is quite good compared to the rest of Spain.
Between 2010 and 2025, there are a total of 1,977 new priests in Spain, 70 of whom, at the time of Demetrio Fernández, came from the diocese of Córdoba and practiced there. Since 2000, the total number is 147. This is a figure that is better understood if we compare the evolution.
4.7% of priests ordained in Spain come from Córdoba, although the province represents only 1.7% of the total population
Thus, in 2010 there were 162 priests throughout Spain and this number has almost always decreased, although with occasional increases. So, in 2014 there were already 117, but in 2015 they increased to 150. In 2019 there were 124, in 2020, 126, in 2021, 125 and from the following year they began to increase. go below a hundred in the sum of all Spanish dioceses. In 2024 there were 85, in 2023 79 and in 2022 there were 97, still below a hundred.
In Córdoba the situation has been stable, with a figure that has always been around four each year. There were weaker moments, like 2022, when there was only one order, in a world still marked by the end of the pandemic, but there was also the eight of the year 2024. They total 208 priests.
The comparison with other dioceses once again shows the good situation of Córdoba. In 2018, one of the last years where Episcopal Conference data is separated, six new priests were ordained in the diocese, as in Toledo and Seville and five less than in Madrid and Zaragozawhere there were eleven. In more than half of the Spanish dioceses there were no seminarians who had received major orders and sometimes there was only one.
About The Author
