While many organisations are laying off workers in crisis-hit Spain, one in particular is still keen to hire.
While many organisations are laying off workers in crisis-hit Spain, one in particular is still keen to hire.
The Roman Catholic Church in the country has launched a recruitment drive to attract young men into the priesthood as the nation struggles with soaring unemployment.
A decline in new recruits has left many parishes across Spain without a priest.
The new campaign, launched this week by Spain's Episcopal Conference, promises a secure job with a modest salary that offers eternal rewards.
"I do not promise you a great salary. I promise you a permanent job," states one of nine priests who appear in a two-and-a-half minute clip broadcast on the YouTube website ahead of Dia del Seminario - the Day of the Priest - on March 19.
Another says: "I do not promise you will live a luxurious life. I promise your wealth will be eternal."
The average salary of a parish priest in Spain is between euros 700 and euros 800 (pounds 580 and pounds 665) a month.
In an apparent reference to the frustrations of Spain's 5?million jobless, a voice asks at the start of the video: "How many promises have been made to you that have not been fulfilled?"
Half of young Spaniards aged between 18 and 25 are out of work, and a national unemployment rate of 23 per cent is expected to rise.
Once the bastion of General Francisco Franco's Spain, the Catholic Church has seen its power and influence wane since the death of the dictator in 1975.
On its transition to democracy, Spain was officially declared a secular state and church attendance has since been on the decline.
The Church claims that 73 per cent of the 46?million population consider themselves Roman Catholics, although fewer than 15 per cent of those admit to attending Mass regularly.
Pope Benedict XVI has made it his priority to reawaken Christianity in countries which have drifted from their traditional Roman Catholic roots.
The Vatican views Spain as a key battleground in the creeping secularism of modern society and the 84-year-old Pontiff has visited the country three times since taking office in 2005.
Last summer's World Youth Day, which was held in Madrid and drew a crowd of 2?million to the final open-air Mass celebrated by the Pope, was credited with raising recruits to the priesthood.
Last year, for the first time in decades, the number of recruits entering seminaries across Spain rose on the year before.
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