With attendance down in mainline Protestant churches and older ministers delaying retirement, many recent seminary graduates are finding that pastoral jobs are scarce, according to a Religion News Service story published Sept. 30, 2006, by The Washington Post.

Read a March 17, 2006, New York Times story about how fewer seminary students are interested in leading churches. It’s posted by Netscape.

Read a 2008 Christian Chronicle article about the decline in attendance of New England pulpits and the struggle of working with small communities for clergy members.

Read a Jan. 31, 2013 Catholic News Service story discussing woman priesthood and responses that have been evoked by the debate.

Read a May 13, 2013 National Catholic Register article about the clergy sex abuse scandals and its effects on the community of clergy men and women.

Read a May 22, 2013 Huffington Post article about the Vatican’s order to change parts of the traditional prayers and rubrics of Mass. A survey showed that 60 percent of priests were dissatisfied with the change.

Kenneth Carder is professor of the practice of pastoral formation at Duke University, Durham, N.C., and senior fellow of Pulpit & Pew. He is a United Methodist bishop.

Cynthia Woolever is director of U.S. Congregations in Louisville, Ky., a religious research group that is conducting the U.S. Congregational Life Survey.

Christine Schenk is a Catholic nun and the executive director emerita of  FutureChurch, based in Lakewood, Ohio, which advocates ordaining married Roman Catholic men and women as priests to alleviate priest shortages.