MLS Soccer player to Catholic Priesthood

I came across this news story and thought I would share it.

You often hear that there is a shortage of vocations to the priesthood. I don't think so however. I think there is a lack of answering the call to a vocation as a priest. Why is there this lack of answering the call? I think there are several reasons, I will give one here.

Parents don't embrace or promote the priesthood for their sons. This is done both directly and indirectly. A subtle way that this lack of support for a vocation to the priesthood is exhibited is in the way parents talk with their children and others about their children's future. Here is an example of a typical conversation between parents and their son.

Mother: "Johnny, when you grow up and have a family of your own, then you'll have the same rules for you your kids"

or

Dad: "Andrew, you need to go to college so that you can have a good job to be able to support your wife and children"

I've heard it thousands of times. There is an underlying assumption that a sons vocation is to the married life. It pervades a persons speech. It generates assumptive language when discussing the future of their children. It isn't a direct hinderance to following a call to the priesthood. But it creates a manner of thinking about the future that excludes the priesthood for young men. This in turn causes young men to reject those thoughts about being a priest when they begin to appear in their conscience because, the only normal thing in all their discussions with family is being a husband and dad.

Whenever I talk with my son, I consciously make a point of including the priesthood as a possible part of his future. Here is an example of my coversation with my son.

ME: "When you grow up and have a parish of people who depend on you, or a wife and kids that depend on you, you'll be glad that I tought you that a person needs to do their chores everyday."

Me: "It's important to learn how to talk with people and to learn how to listen to people because if you have a wife and kids, you need to be able to do those things. And if you are a priest, you have to be able to give people really good advice during confessions or spiritual direction."

I think if people would just make that subtle contextual change in their speech, there would be a dramatic increase in young men following their call to a vocation to the priesthood.