The Archdiocese of Baltimore expects to ordain its largest single-year class in more than 50 years as the number of men in priestly formation continues to rise.
The archdiocese said it will ordain 12 priests in 2027, one in January and 11 in June. Overall, the numbers have grown from 28 seminarians in 2007, 52 in 2020, and 66 this year. In 2026, 14 men, ranging in age from 17 to 36, entered formation from 14 different parishes.
"This has not been sudden," Archbishop William E. Lori said. "It's been building every year, and this is due to a lot of people praying before the Blessed Sacrament. It's due to a good vocations team. It's also due to pastors who are encouraging vocations in their parishes — and to parents who are generously open to the possibility that their son might have a priestly vocation."
Father Steven Roth, vocations director and associate vicar for clergy, told EWTN News that when Lori came to Baltimore, the archbishop was given staggering statistics on the declining number of clergy there, and "from the start, he was determined to reverse that trend."
Lori ordained five priests and 12 transitional deacons at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in May 2026.
"We did the counterintuitive," Roth said. "We raised the bar for the application process. Because of that, we now have 66 vocations directors," he said of the 66 current seminarians.
"Our success is based on the men who have said yes. They're the best advertisement for us," he said, recounting a scenario where a man was on the fence about applying to seminary, but a seminarian on a summer assignment at a parish helped the man decide to apply.
Newly ordained priests are filling positions that have been empty for years: hospital, high school and college chaplaincies, and parishes that have not had an associate pastor in decades.
Roth said they are already seeing the positive effects: at one parish in particular, he said, there has been "a drastic difference" since the arrival of a young priest who is assisting the pastor: "To have a young priest with vigor, it just energizes the community; it excites everyone to continue this work … there are more people now, and the energy in the parish is different."
What brought the initial increase, Roth said, were efforts to get parish leadership to see there was a need for more vocations. "They've run with it," he said. "Pastors have been huge supporters of the archbishop's push and the key to the rising numbers."
Many parishes have created a culture of vocation awareness, encouraging Eucharistic adoration and welcoming him and Father Lenin Suarez, the associate director of vocations, to speak. Pastors have personally invited young men to go to attend discernment retreats such as Quo Vadis, and Quo Vadis Beyond, directed toward high school-aged men.
Both of the archdiocese's propaedeutic houses, in Emmitsburg and Baltimore, are full. Three of this year's new seminarians will spend that first year, the propaedeutic year — a period of prayer, discernment, and human formation — at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary instead, working with the Source of All Hope program among the homeless.
Formation can last up to nine years, which Roth said is intended to be a time of healthy discernment in which the men have the opportunity to reflect on their experiences.
In addition to academics, seminarians undergo background checks, meet with priests and formators, attend spiritual direction, and work at various parish ministries as they discern and before they are formally accepted.
"We have an intense process, once we think they're capable of formation, then we give them the application" to the seminary, Roth said. "We don't just send an application to everyone."
While there are men who leave, Roth said it's a small number. "We do have men who discern out and become wonderful husbands and fathers," he said.
Roth said the quality of the candidates is impressive.
"I'm impressed with them all the time," he said. He described how some have a charism for working with the poor in Baltimore City, spending time with the drug addicted and the homeless. "They're not afraid at all," Roth said.
He also described the fraternity among the seminarians, calling it "incredible."
"When a man is accepted as a seminarian, the other guys immediately start emailing him, inviting him to events," Roth said. "If a man is sick, or if a family member of his is sick or dies, they all rally around" and care for him.
A few years ago, a man in a college seminary broke his leg in a football game. The other seminarians reconfigured the seminary so he could come back sooner while he was still in a wheelchair. "It was inspiring to me," Roth said. "They were all cheering him on."
The vocations director said that while "we celebrate not only the number as well as the caliber" of the young men, "the work is not done. There is so much more opportunity for evangelization. That is why we have to keep praying for vocations."
"Our priests work so hard, they are stretched to the limits. We hope to start expanding our evangelization efforts," Roth said. "We've envisioned journeying with families who've lost a loved one. What usually happens when someone dies is the parish works with the family though the funeral, and that's it. At best you get an invite to an All Souls liturgy later in the year. Imagine if a priest had the time to walk with the family in the months and years after a death, or facilitate a group of laypeople to support the family?"
Regarding the sacraments, Roth said while the Church is good at providing them, it is not great with the follow-up. He would like to see priests supporting young married couples through the first years of marriage and after the baptism of their children. He'd also like to see priests and lay members reach out to fallen away Catholics, showing care and inviting them back to the Church.
Roth said he hopes publicity about the rising numbers of seminarians doesn't mean people will stop praying for more priests. On the contrary, he said, "the archbishop says this is the time for more prayers, for more men to say yes. We are asking for more vocations in every realm: more marriages; for more young women to enter religious communities."
"This is a very broad project. This does not mean the job is done, it's just the beginning," he said.
