Father Jack Federico was ill and no longer able to lead a big Catholic church in Clarksburg.

Another priest had to be found - no simple matter when American priests are dying and retiring faster than new ones join up.

Bishop Michael J. Bransfield, spiritual leader of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, tapped the Rev. Casey Mahone to lead Immaculate Conception Church and its 1,050 families.

A one-time assistant at Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in Charleston and a priest for 19 years, Mahone, 52, was leading Parkersburg's St. Francis Xavier Church, when the bishop called.

Mahone moved in late April - mid-season, as it were. His replacement won't come until later this month, when the Rev. Eric Hall comes to Parkersburg from Sacred Heart in Huntington. The Rev. Walter Jagela, who has been ministering to Catholics at Bethany College and West Liberty College, will replace Hall in Huntington.

"There's certainly a domino effect when you move a pastor from one town," said the Rev. Paul Hudock, the diocese's director of vocations. "That can wind up affecting three or four other towns."

Especially in a year like this one, when not a single new priest enters the ranks. The bishop ordained two seminarians as deacons; they and another deacon ordained last year will all probably become priests a year from now.

At one time, the diocese had 112 diocesan priests. Today, 71 diocesan priests and another 36 religious-order priests serve the state's Catholics. Another 22 religious-order priests teach at and run Wheeling Jesuit University.

The religious orders have suffered their own recruiting setbacks, and their numbers have shrunk, too. When the Paulists pulled their two priests from West Virginia University a few years ago, the diocese had to send in two replacements.

Another 40 diocesan priests are retired, but at least six remain active. That includes retired Bishop Bernard Schmitt, who submitted his resignation as required on his 75th birthday, stayed on another 18 months, and continues working at 79. "He does confirmations all the time," Hudock said.

A surge between 1993 and 1995 brought 11 men into the priesthood, but the next eight years brought in only 10 more.

Over the last five years, the bishop ordained 12 priests, Hudock said. Meanwhile, 18 priests - mostly retired - died and another 15 retired, including the Rev. John McDonnell, who stepped down at St. Agnes in Kanawha City but continues to report to the diocese's Charleston office, where he remains active in ecumenical work.

Few priests leave the priesthood mid-career, though that happened more often in the 1970s. "A lot of people thought Vatican II would change the priesthood drastically, married priests and all that, and when it didn't, some left," John Gallagher, Hudock's predecessor in the vocations job, once said.

The Vatican, which continues to resist the notion that women priests might shore up the thinning ranks of those who can celebrate Mass, just promised excommunication for anyone ordaining a woman as priest. In March the archbishop of St. Louis excommunicated three women for doing just that.

The Vatican has also opposed the notion that married men might become priests. "Married priests are possible, but not probable, now," Bransfield said when the Vatican named him in late 2004 to lead the diocese.

Father Jack Federico was ill and no longer able to lead a big Catholic church in Clarksburg.

Another priest had to be found - no simple matter when American priests are dying and retiring faster than new ones join up.

Bishop Michael J. Bransfield, spiritual leader of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, tapped the Rev. Casey Mahone to lead Immaculate Conception Church and its 1,050 families.

A one-time assistant at Sacred Heart Co-Cathedral in Charleston and a priest for 19 years, Mahone, 52, was leading Parkersburg's St. Francis Xavier Church, when the bishop called.

Mahone moved in late April - mid-season, as it were. His replacement won't come until later this month, when the Rev. Eric Hall comes to Parkersburg from Sacred Heart in Huntington. The Rev. Walter Jagela, who has been ministering to Catholics at Bethany College and West Liberty College, will replace Hall in Huntington.

"There's certainly a domino effect when you move a pastor from one town," said the Rev. Paul Hudock, the diocese's director of vocations. "That can wind up affecting three or four other towns."

Especially in a year like this one, when not a single new priest enters the ranks. The bishop ordained two seminarians as deacons; they and another deacon ordained last year will all probably become priests a year from now.

At one time, the diocese had 112 diocesan priests. Today, 71 diocesan priests and another 36 religious-order priests serve the state's Catholics. Another 22 religious-order priests teach at and run Wheeling Jesuit University.

The religious orders have suffered their own recruiting setbacks, and their numbers have shrunk, too. When the Paulists pulled their two priests from West Virginia University a few years ago, the diocese had to send in two replacements.

Another 40 diocesan priests are retired, but at least six remain active. That includes retired Bishop Bernard Schmitt, who submitted his resignation as required on his 75th birthday, stayed on another 18 months, and continues working at 79. "He does confirmations all the time," Hudock said.

A surge between 1993 and 1995 brought 11 men into the priesthood, but the next eight years brought in only 10 more.

Over the last five years, the bishop ordained 12 priests, Hudock said. Meanwhile, 18 priests - mostly retired - died and another 15 retired, including the Rev. John McDonnell, who stepped down at St. Agnes in Kanawha City but continues to report to the diocese's Charleston office, where he remains active in ecumenical work.

Few priests leave the priesthood mid-career, though that happened more often in the 1970s. "A lot of people thought Vatican II would change the priesthood drastically, married priests and all that, and when it didn't, some left," John Gallagher, Hudock's predecessor in the vocations job, once said.

The Vatican, which continues to resist the notion that women priests might shore up the thinning ranks of those who can celebrate Mass, just promised excommunication for anyone ordaining a woman as priest. In March the archbishop of St. Louis excommunicated three women for doing just that.

The Vatican has also opposed the notion that married men might become priests. "Married priests are possible, but not probable, now," Bransfield said when the Vatican named him in late 2004 to lead the diocese.

Two seminarians from Nigeria became diocesan priests in the last five years, Hudock said. Of 10 men now in seminary, two came from the Philippines and one from El Salvador. "In many ways the priesthood is like other professions in West Virginia. People come from overseas to pursue their vocations," he said.

Hudock mentors the pre-seminarians, the four to 10 males who at any one time are considering the priesthood. "We're seeing teenagers who have interest. And this is something we haven't seen in the Catholic Church in some time. A lot of the men will mention Pope John Paul II [who died in 2005] as a positive image of priesthood."

In 2004, the bishop ordained 19 men as permanent deacons, who became paid staff working in prison ministry, social justice ministry and in churches as pastoral associates. One of those deacons, Todd Garland of Webster Springs, heads the diocese's Office of Justice and Peace.

Fifteen active-duty diocesan priests are 60 or older, Hudock said. The new bishop has raised the retirement age from 65 to 70, bringing it in line with most American dioceses. Priests do not have to retire at all, and many stay on the job until their health fails. At 77, Monsignor Edward Sadie still takes on new projects, including the recent installation of two outdoor sculptures across from Sacred Heart in Charleston.

Since Vatican II, the council that opened the Catholic Church to change in the early 1960s, the Church has expanded its opportunities for both male and female lay people, Hudock said. Some earn master's degrees in applied theology through Duquesne University and take on many priestly duties - just not the celebrating of Mass and the offering of the sacrament. "But they do everything else such as education, ministry to youth, evangelization and ministry to the homebound."

Mahone, the priest taking over in Clarksburg, tried an earlier career, putting in five years as a physician's assistant at the Stevens Clinic in Welch before heading off to seminary in his late 20s.

"It's doing what you think God wants you to do with your life," Mahone said. "You become an important person in people's lives. You're invited into their lives on crucial occasions. That's when you really get to know them, when you walk with them during crucial times - weddings, sickness, funerals. You don't have a family of your own, but you're an important part of many peoples' families."

About 88,000 Catholics live in the state, down from 106,000 in 1991. Hudock acknowledges the challenges of finding priests to cover all 111 parishes, but he is, at the beginning and end of each day, a believer. "We remain optimistic that the Holy Spirit will provide so our communities can continue their witness to the Gospel."

"The priests we have out there keep stretching themselves," said Monsignor Frederick Annie, the diocese's vicar for clergy. "They say more Masses in more places. They see more people. People don't notice that the numbers are decreasing and the age of our men are increasing."

Mahone was an early second-career priest, but the Rev. Chapin Engler was a few weeks shy of his 45th birthday when the bishop ordained him last spring. "We used to get 40 or 50 years out of a priest," Annie said. "Now we ordain some men we get only 20 or 30 years from."

Mahone will do well in Clarksburg, Annie said. "It's a good assignment. But it's another example of the shortage. He's there by himself."

Two of the diocese's most colorful and effective priests seemed set for life in the Kanawha Valley, but the diocese's needs trumped those plans for one of them. Sadie has completed 28 years at Sacred Heart, where he scoffs at the notion of retirement. The other, the Rev. Leon Alexander, left Blessed Sacrament in South Charleston after 20 years in 2006 to replace a retiring priest in Morgantown. He is 68.

"I need to make both of them 20 years younger," Annie said. "Work on that for me."

To contact staff writer Bob Schwarz, use e-mail or call 348-1249.