Number of opportunities. I’d either be an associate priest at a parish, school chaplain (either independent high school or university level, or prison), could teach religion at independent schools, do non profit work, or work at a retreat center. Depending on the place, some of those opportunities are more robust than others. I’d actually prefer to stay out of the parish if I can help it, but we’ll see. Parishes tend to be a ton of administrative work, as they’re really just small businesses that are severely understaffed. Additionally, the demographic obviously skews pretty old and that can be a challenge for a 26 year old cleric in terms of relating to folks. I think I’d most prefer either boots on the ground work in the non profit sector with homelessness where I have a good deal of prior experience, prison work, or retreat ministry.
It’s kind of important as a young ordained person to diversify experience. Older priests have made careers in parishes, but with shrinking attendance and mounting costs of maintaining large, old buildings, full time parish work becomes less viable, especially in the northeast. I’d like to be able to gather a set of skills that keeps me from being sort of obsolete if traditional parish ministry becomes a thing of the past, which I predict that it will over the next 20 years in 90% of cases.
Obviously a strange career path that tends to elicit a lot of questions in people which I have no problem explaining.
