Almost every time I go Mass, I notice among the intentions listed during the prayers of the faithful something about more vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Of course, one almost never hears any similar intentions about more marriages. (To be fair, I did go to one parish church recently where I noticed that the pastor prayed for good and holy marriages right alongside vocations to the priesthood and religious life, but I think it's pretty clear that this is the exception, not the rule.) Obviously, I am not saying that we should not pray that we will receive in the Church enough priests, etc. However, I do think the constant prayers for vocations which refer exclusively to the priesthood and the religious life are a symptom of a common misunderstanding of the nature of the vocations crisis, a misunderstanding which also relates to misleading ways of looking at vocations in general.

In my opinion, the vocations crisis as it is commonly conceived, as a problem relating specifically or primarily to vocations to the priesthood and/or consecrated celibacy, simply does not exist. There is a crisis, but that's not it. True, there is a shortage of priests in many places. However, the problem we have is not that too few of the people who think of their lives in terms of vocation are entering the priesthood or religious life. Rather, the problem is that too few people in the world are thinking of their lives in terms of vocations in the first place. The problem is every bit as much about marriage as it is about the priesthood or religious life. Catholics face a marriage shortage that is as serious as the priest shortage we face in some places, if not more so. The seriousness of it is somewhat hidden at the moment by the fact that marriage, for the time being at least, has maintained a natural place in society, so even many people who do not think of their lives in terms of vocations may end up getting married (or at least appearing to get married--it seems obvious that we presumably have a host of invalid marriages in our modern society, for a variety of reasons). I think the scope of the problem will become more apparent as the denial of the social significance of marriage becomes more overt in our civilization, so that there are no longer large numbers of people getting married more or less by default, simply because it is a customary thing to do. One can already see this occuring in some places and in certain segments of the population. Honestly, though, even now, do you think that all the people who are getting married with no sense of this as a vocation are going to fulfill adequately the necessary goods marriage is meant for in the family, the Church, and society?

Understanding the vocations problem in this broader way also means that an authentic solution can come only through a long road of broad catechesis and evangelization, which will have to begin in the family. There are no shortcuts. Unfortunately, many of the modern approaches to the "vocations crisis" seem implicitly to assume the narrower view of the vocations crisis I mentioned earlier, which I regard as a serious error. Aggressive advertising, promotion and recruiting are unlikely to convince an irreligious young man to consider the priesthood or monastic life, or an irreligious young woman to enter the convent. What these sorts of methods seem designed to do is to push the ideas of the priesthood and religious life in the minds of practicing and believing Catholics who already see their lives in vocational terms, trying to get these Catholics to choose a religious vocation. This parallels the purpose of advertising, promotion and recruitment in the secular commercial world. Thus, while ostensibly upholding the truth that God chooses you for a particular vocation, these various forms of recruitment can in fact cast vocation voluntaristically in terms of choice, pushing people to choose in a specific direction desired (perhaps with the best of intentions) by the ones doing the pushing.

Also, note that while those who emphasize such approaches may not be conscious of this, the reality is that marriage must be taken as the opponent in the battle for more vocations from their perspective. After all, if the object is not merely to grow the field of vocations, but to claim more of that field for the priesthood and religious life, then that ground must be taken from somewhere. This too, I think, is reflected in the attitudes one sometimes observes. I have seen vocations recruitment literature that was pretty obviously directed at heading off any inclinations the readers might have to think that they were called to marriage. One also sometimes sees a subtle (or not so subtle) implication that if you really love God, then what you do is enter the priesthood or religious life. For that matter, any real interest in one's relationship with God on the part of almost any unmarried Catholic young adult is routinely viewed by some as a sign of vocation to the priesthood or the religious life for that person. Sometimes, the possible "signs" of a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated celibacy are even more broad, such as "a longing for something more in life." I'm sorry, but if you are a single Catholic young adult, I don't thing I'm prepared to take a longing for something more in life as a sign of a specific vocation. Seriously, who in that group doesn't have a longing for something more in life? That's a sign that you have a pulse. Maybe it could also be a sign that you are not yet in the vocation for which you are ultimately meant.

I have to think about this topic more, but for now I'll just say that I worry about people brought into the priesthood or religious life under such approaches, and I worry that some of the phenomena I am pointing to here reflect a deeper reality that we still have not taken seriously the developments upholding the lay vocation and the universal call to holiness that the Church has given us in the modern era, perhaps the most important developments in the recent history of the Church in my opinion. It seems to me that in some ways we have done little more than pay lip service to the universal call to holiness since Vatican II. Sometimes enthusiastic and ostentatious lip service to be sure, but still lip service.