Family keeps pushing me to be a priest, but I detest the idea

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4gospels said:
Since moving back to the US from living in a foreign country for work for many years (as well as entering a long-term relationship which has been continuing for 2.5 years now), my parents and my grandfather (a deacon) have talked to me multiple times about a religious vocation.
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Maybe after 2 1/2 years in a long-term relationship it is time to consider marriage? That would end the nagging about the priesthood.
 
Sometimes families just get stuck in a rut about what they want for you. Like someone said they may think that you are fair game to pressurise until you are married. Many parents do this sort of thing though usually it’s about career or marriage 😉 . If I were you I’d just ignore it as best you can and try if they ‘set you up’ with a priest like that again ask him about secular institutes and lay service as you mentioned. I would suggest you pursue that as that sounds like it’s your own discernment. If your relationship goes well and leads to marriage so be it but don’t rush into marriage just to get your parents off the ‘priest thing’. I am sure you know that. You can be firm with your parents as you have been but there is only so much you can say. It seems you have said it and done it. If you pursue your own discernment in the lay orders then you may find when you arrive at your destination, maybe you can share it with them one day. God bless you in your journey.
 
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Please make your own decision and stick to it. You are old enough to make choices regardless of your parents wishes.

Please do not join seminary or religious life if you don’t have a vocation to them.
 
Edmundus1581 said:
families do tend to continue to interfere long after the child is making their own choices as an adult - especially if they are unmarried. At nearly 60 I still get it from my mother!
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Heh. I still get it from time to time, from my sister. (Not mother: both parents are dead, and may God rest their souls.)
 
We have enough troubled priests. Please don’t become a priest to fulfill somebody else wishes.
 
Your family has no right nor authority to make this decision for you. It’s for you to decide.

You should be open to hear God’s will but you’ve said you went through the discernment process in college, so you already know God is not calling you to the priesthood.

I endorse t he advice you’ve been given to refuse to discuss this further with your family.
 
I think if you tell the vocations director that the only reason you are there is because you feel forced to be there by your family and that you have no desire or interest in becoming a priest they will not want you after that.
 
If you don’t want to be a priest, don’t be a priest. If your family doesn’t like it, too bad.
 
If you are 29 and have been in a meaningful relationship for 2.5 years and still have not gotten married…I would wonder too.
 
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At 29…People don’t need to delay marriage… If God has not given you an answer to marriage after 2.5 years of being in a committed relationship together … seriously? Most women would not bare to be dragged along for 3 years…many even less at that age…most women at that age have a desire to have children and have already started to grow their families. If he drags her into her 30’s and then leaves her, it’s just cruel. IMO.
 
Why is being a priest a call from god when other callings are not? They are all a job with responsibilities
 
Being a teacher is a vocation as dedicated as yours. Just because some celestial being spoke to u to do it doesn’t give u first in line for devotion to a vocation.
 
CIC - Can. 1026: A person must possess due freedom in order to be ordained. It is absolutely forbidden to force anyone in any way or for any reason to receive orders or to deter one who is canonically suitable from receiving them.

Note the strict wording “absolutely forbidden” (latin: “nefas est”). There are only handful of such strict prohibitions in the whole CIC (e.g. breaking the sacramental seal of confession, desecration of the Eucharist…).
 
I can imagine how hurtful it is to have your parents wanting you to be a priest. It is not their place to try and “push” you into it.

Marriage is a vocation also, we need Godly husbands and fathers.

No matter what vocation we choose, the Lord needs to be first in our lives.
 
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