Perhaps there is an alternate way to address priest shortages: train in scripture and theology persons from within parishes to become priests with sacramental functions, but not a full time clerics who need full time salaries. When the US took over Puerto Rico, it has been for a generation or so without priests, since the Spanish had gone home. The fear was that everybody would have become Pentecostal, but US priest found the Hermanos Cheos, laymen, had kept a vigorous faith alive by meeting for devotions. Soon however, they were eliminated by attrition so a proper priesthood could once again take over from a leadership that could have been accepted, further trained, and ordained. But they were married men, so Puerto Rico was again clericalized. . .