This does not include the number lost to religious houses and priests themselves.
30,000 priest left the priesthood worldwide in the first year after Vatican II alone, according to Malachi Martin.
THIS MAY WELL REPRESENT THE CREAM AND BEST TALENT, which elite was also probably subsequently deterred from joining the religious
life, thus breaking down the spiritual barrier against evil in the world and allowing the rise of the two antichrist
beasts. (Revelations); the New World Order.
If you think that is a stretch how about the name of the central institution of the Catholic church, the Mass; now titled
on every mass book in the world , - "The New [World] Order of the Mass."!
One reason for the defection and lack of vocations is that they would refuse to be bound by the vow of obedience to a
masonic, protestant corrupted church, and may not have been aware of the alternative Tridentine orders that sprung up.
Just one Convent in Eastwood, (Sydney) Australia which averaged 80 new postulants a year prior to Vatican II, had not
had one new novitiate in the past 13 years when I spoke to an aging nun there, around the year 2000.
Based on the above
Note to Catholic Church: - get a clue!
the only other conclusion is that the hierarchy WANTS the Catholic church
to fall apart.
Hence the words of Christ himself in the gospels have a new ring to us down through the ages........ "Lo, I am with you always, EVEN to the end."