Promoting religious, priestly Vocations: Crafty or genuine?

By M K George

Rome, July 22, 2022: Promoting vocations to religious and priestly life in the Catholic Church has always been a contentious issue. How much of it is a divine call and how much, a human project?

The Church asserts that the call to religious and priestly life is primarily from God. And, human efforts are only subsidiary to the divine call.

A renowned social scientist’s recent statement is the reason for this reflection.

Devika recently said in Channel discussion, “The number of women who are choosing to enter nunneries (convents) are falling— I have numbers from 50s , 60s and 70s. There was a very sharp rise, very, very sharp rise, in the number of young women entering the convents and it plateaued in the eighties. From nineties it is falling and now it probably is very steep. Around the world, we have been seeing it. The number of women choosing to enter the nunneries is falling. And the Church will shower more blandishments like for example promising a career, promising easy entry, easy exit, offer a bunch of goodies for the numbers to be kept alive, kept going. That will mean in the Church women will have a higher bargaining power.”

The problematic statement is the blandishment part. The secular world is reading as if vocation promotion to religious and priestly life has become an exercise in blandishments, crafty and cunning.

It is good for us to do a bit of self-examen before rushing to attack the social scientist or be defensive.

Old stories unforgotten

Gita Arumudan wrote in 2018: “Nearly half a century ago, Father Cyriac Puthenpurackal, who was in charge of an independent diocese in Ettumanoor in Kottayam district, Kerala, India, was accused of “exporting” more than 800 young Catholic girls from Kerala to Germany in what came to be known as the “nun-running” scandal of the 1960s and early 70s. The girls, who mostly came from poor families, were apparently under the impression that they were going to be trained as nurses or teachers; but they actually landed up doing domestic work in the convents of Germany… By the mid-1960s, the export of these girls was at its peak. Each of the many convents in Kerala got at least a dozen new recruits every year. There was no shortage of nuns in Kerala. But the girls who were sent to Germany were not necessarily ones who were intending to become nuns. Only after they reached Germany did they realize they had been lured under false pretences, and that the German convents had actually paid money to get them over to do manual work. The money went into the pockets of the priests, and the families did not even know they had sold their daughters.’

It has been a traumatic part of the recent Church history. However, history shows that the Church has learned some lessons. But, how deep have been the learning?

No ‘pure vocations’

No one can claim to have been called purely for God’s service with no other motives than divine. There is always the complexity of human motivations. In taking decisions on life, no human can ever claim that he or she is free from unconscious motives.

I was surprised to read the story of Gregor Johann Mendel, a revolutionary scientist, a biologist, meteorologist, mathematician, Augustinian friar and abbot of St. Thomas’ Abbey in Brünn, Margraviate of Moravia whose 200th birthday was on July 20.

“Mendel completed his schooling from the Gymnasium in Troppau. His physics teacher in the gymnasium, Friedrich Franz, who was impressed with his talents in physics and natural sciences, made a life-changing suggestion to him. Franz, a priest, informed Mendel that the Augustinian Order of the Catholic Church valued intellectual pursuits. He suggested that priesthood could offer Johann a path to learning and teaching. Johann grabbed the suggestion and joined St. Thomas monastery in Brünn (now Brno) in 1843 and changed his christened name Johann to Gregor.” (P. Majumdar, Indian Express July 21, 2022)

I look at my own story. Was my decision early in my life purely for divine service? I would not assert. But, one thing I am clear, over the years the Society of Jesus, in which I am a member, gave me space, time and accompaniment to refine my decision and make it as humanly as possible to be for the service of the Kingdom of God and the suffering people of God.

I believe this is the story of many more religious and priests today.

There is a lot of to be worried about

However, there is much to be worried about in the context of the secular world also being concerned about the way the Church promotes vocations.

No one can deny that certain dioceses do not encourage youth to join certain congregations, and that certain dioceses insist that you should form a province of the particular rite to allow vocation promotion. Some vocation promoters can be pretty naïve and savvy about the way they promote vocations. Most crucially, there has been quite a lot of bureaucratization in the process of vocation promotion, and the choice of candidates to religious and priestly life, which can be both helpful and unhelpful.

The open rebellion even among the most conservative and traditional women congregations is an invitation for us to be critical and genuine in choosing candidates. The increasing number of suicides and unhappy religious are reasons to self-critique.

The genuine way of promoting vocations?

Father Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Society of Jesus, made some insightful observations. He said, ‘The promotion of the (Jesuit) vocation is not comparable to a good publicity campaign that seeks to multiply sales of a product…Our ‘vocational promotion’ is fundamentally a vocational discernment.”

He insisted that one’s vocation must be tested at length. He also reminded that we should pray for good vocations, because ultimately it is the Lord who calls.

A genuine vocation is a call from God through Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, with others and for others. As Dorothy Day said, “You will know your vocation by the joy it brings you.”

Genuine vocation promotion is assisting the prospective candidate to listen to the Spirit of God who calls him or her, accompany the candidate and help discern an appropriate decision. Any external blandishment is not Christian and not the least ethical.

Pope Francis said, “God calls you to make definitive choices, and He has a plan for each of you: to discover that plan and respond to your vocation is to move toward personal fulfillment.”

(Father M K George now resides in the Jesuit headquarters in Rome)