Few prospects have emerged to permanently lead the Newman Catholic Student Center, which has been forced to improvise to conduct services after the Rev. Chris Piasta left earlier this year.

The Newman Center began its search in February after Piasta announced his plans to leave to further his education in New York. With his departure, the Newman Center is without a priest on staff.

Dave Ebenhoh, director of the Newman Center, said the lack of applicants is because of a nationwide priest shortage.

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“We have only had a total of six or seven priests who have even sent resumes or applied,” Ebenhoh said.

It took the church more than a year to find Piasta. Indications are that the process could be quite lengthy again, but the church prefers that not to be the case.

“We’re hoping it doesn’t take that long again,” Ebenhoh said.

In the meantime, the center has relied on the Rev. Joseph Brown, SJ, to conduct services once or twice a month. Brown already serves as a professor and director of the Black American Studies program at the University.

“I already have a full time job,” Brown said. “I stretched myself far too thin by trying to do that last time.”

Brown filled in during the long search for Piasta. He said he is doing as much as he can because he feels the Newman Center is one of the most important ministries in the area.

In addition, the Rev. Jim Thomas, a retired Air Force chaplain from Belleville, preaches once or twice a month. However, if they can’t make it, the church is sent scrambling to find another priest to fill in.

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Megan Nolan, a senior from Lyons near Chicago studying early childhood education, said visiting priests from different countries have conducted the past two services.

“It is nice to see a new face each week,” Nolan said. “Each one has a different style.”

The Rev. Vincent Mukase, a priest from Kampala, South Africa, in the Uganda diocese, filled in Sunday. He has been traveling to Belleville since 1998.

“There isn’t much attraction to the priesthood,” Mukase said. “There have been waves in the participation worldwide.”

Mukase comes once a year to the area and travels to numerous churches; this was his first time in Carbondale and at the Newman Center.

“There just happened to be a priest visiting the area,” Ebenhoh said. “We got lucky.”

Ebenhoh said the priest shortage is especially bad for rural areas, such as Southern Illinois.

In the Southern one-third of Illinois, there are about 70 priests to cover 120 Catholic churches, Ebenhoh said.

“There are some priests covering three or four churches,” he said. “In 10 years, the prediction is that there will be only 35 priests to cover 120 churches.”

He said the shortage has been a major issue in the church for the past 15 to 20 years.

“It just keeps getting bigger and bigger because the reality keeps getting harder to live with,” Ebenhoh said.

Ebenhoh blames the priest shortage on the fact that the church requires a priest to be an unmarried man. He said there has been a movement in the Catholic Church to allow priests to be married or to start allowing women priests.

“If we’re continuing on the path we’re on, something has to change,” Ebenhoh said, “It won’t be able to continue to operate.”

Reporter Laura Teegarden can be reached at [email protected]