Why religious vocation is so in decline these days?
I am considering to encourage my two children to pursue religious vocation but don’t know whether it appears too unrealistic?
This is a question that is exceedingly complex to answer.
In my grandmother’s generation (so we are speaking of the 19th century), her opportunities in life were exceedingly limited and her expectations were pretty much defined for her. She was such a wonderful, intelligent and vibrant woman.
Unlike my grandmother, my mother had more opportunities and the opportunity to have a professional career – but in an era when her career choices were severely limited. She began her life in what was then a very traditional field for a woman…and she had the opportunity to move beyond that, thankfully. Many women did not.
Religious life was seen as a very legitimate and noble life’s work…like being a teacher or a nurse…a librarian or a secretary were proper choices for a young woman, if less selfless and noble, but the opportunities were restricted in a way they are not today. A woman’s access to higher education was also practically restricted.
In my younger days as a seminarian and priest, I worked with many Religious, male and female, who certainly felt the call to their vocation but who also said they had few if any other practical options, especially after the two wars and the depression.
Now women have almost limitless career choices and are favoured in non-traditional career paths. Society today, thankfully, is vastly different. It does not restrain, neither women nor men, in the ways it did in years past.
I had many more opportunities, in the society rebuilding after the last war, than my parents and certainly my grandparents had, that is unquestionable.
The generations after me? They have opportunities in terms of travel and study and careers that I never dreamed of nor could have imagined. I would hope that I would not have chosen differently had I belonged to a latter generation but the reality is that the horizon for a young person today is so much more broader and so much more vast than it was in my youth.
There are many, at least in the developed world, for whom the sky is the limit. That factor alone, combined with smaller families, the desire for grandchildren, and various other factors internal and external to the family makes clear to me why we have fewer vocations than in other eras.
I think it is absolutely wonderful to expose children to the priesthood/religious life – as they should be reminded that they have a broad scope of possibility, depending upon their interests and aptitude. It is wonderful, too, to let children know you would welcome their considering priesthood/religious life…but the choice is properly theirs and then the Church’s.
Frankly, many areas in the developed world where Religious once served have been taken over by others today…in health care, education, work with orphans and social service.
I have also seen how the vocation is no longer is esteemed or supported in the way it was when I was younger. That never bothered me in the least…but it is a simple reality that reflects on society, on individuals and above all on Catholics.
The saddest cases for me, as a priest, are working with youth whose vocations are fought by their families…sadder when it is families who projected a facade of piety that was for show, that is until their child expresses a wish to pursue a vocation.
