‘This Is the Greatest Thing a Man Can Do’: Vocational Journeys of Recently Ordained Catholic Priests in Australia

Abstract

In many Western countries, the Catholic Church (like several others) is currently suffering a vocations crisis. Australia is no exception. Each year, dioceses see more priests retire, die, or leave the priesthood than new ones are ordained. For this reason, it is becoming increasingly mission-critical for dioceses to understand better the vocational journeys of those men who do become priests. These are also, of course, groups of considerable sociological interest: what motivates them to do (and become) something so countercultural? This article presents the main findings from a qualitative research project exploring the vocational journeys of recently ordained (i.e., within the past ten years at the time of the study) priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney, New South Wales.

1. Introduction

This article presents the main findings from a research project titled ‘Liturgical Formation and the Vocational Journey: A Study of New Priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney’. Its purpose was to find out from newer priests (defined as those ordained within the previous ten years for the purposes of the study) what helped them to discern their vocation to the priesthood and what kind of factors played a role in the process of responding to this vocational call.

Obtaining a fuller understanding of the vocational journey, one that goes beyond anecdote is mission-critical for Catholic dioceses.1 St John Henry Newman’s quip about the Church ‘looking foolish’ (Newman [1859–1861] 1969, p. 141) without the laity is well-known. But the same applies to priests too. Declining numbers of both priests and (practising) people have been a reality for the Church in many Western countries over the previous several decades, with Australia no exception. Given this, better comprehending the complex factors (and how they interact) that influence the vocational journeys of those men who do become priests, while not the only item of urgent pastoral research for the Church today, must surely be high on the list. Simply put, knowing what things tend to help, and what things tend to hinder, vocational discernment at all stages of the process from childhood onwards, is of clear—and, moreover, usable—value. Despite this, there exists only a small amount of empirical literature on the topic of priestly vocations (e.g., Stark and Finke 2000; Rose 2002; Fishman and Keely 2007; Fishman et al. 2015; Hankle 2010), and almost all the recent work from an Australian context has specifically focused on religious, rather than diocesan, vocations (Rymarz 2016; Dixon et al. 2018, 2021). That this current research was performed in Sydney, a diocese doing relatively well by Australian standards in attracting vocations (see Martyr 2023), is an added bonus. This study ought, therefore, to have wider applicability for dioceses in other quasi-comparable contexts in Australia and beyond.

2. Data and Methods

This empirical research comprised two main phases. The first was a web survey, designed by the author with helpful input from the archdiocese’s Liturgy and Vocations teams and a U.S.-based researcher,2 hosted on the Qualtrics website. This included a series of tick-box demographic and religious background questions (age, when ordained, where brought up, cradle Catholic or convert, family religious background, etc.), followed by fifteen open-ended questions asking about key aspects of, or factors influencing, the respondent’s vocational journeys. In early May 2023, an invitation to participate was emailed to all priests of the Archdiocese (thus excluding priests of orders or prelatures working in the Archdiocese) ordained within the last ten years. Those contacted were given slightly over three weeks to complete the survey, with a reminder sent a little before the deadline.

Of the thirty-two priests invited to participate, thirteen did so. Although this response rate—41%, which is very high compared with much survey research in the social sciences—was lower than hoped, it nevertheless included a pleasing range of respondents in terms of demographics (age, ethnicity, country of birth; see

Table 1. Basic demographic breakdown of the survey sample.

Age	Numbers	% of Survey Sample
25–29	1	8%
30–34	5	38%
35–39	3	23%
40–44	3	23%
45–49	0	0%
50–54	1	8%
Year ordained
2013	1	8%
2014	0	0%
2015	1	8%
2016	1	8%
2017	2	15%
2018	0	0%
2019	3	23%
2020	2	15%
2021	0	0%
2022	3	23%
Born
Australia	6	46%
Asia	6	46%
N. America/Caribbean	1	8%
Upbringing
Cradle Catholic	12	92%
Convert	1	8%

), religious background (Latin-rite/Eastern Catholic upbringing, different norms of family practice, Catholic schools or not), and vocational trajectories (e.g., early vs. late vocations, those whose whole discernment was with Sydney vs. those who discerned into the Archdiocese, etc.).

Every vocation story, just like every conversion story, is unique. But there are, as we shall see, inevitably significant overlaps and commonalities among them. Naturally, this is all the truer within a single diocese during a single ten-year period. Still, it would be misleading to think of there being a single standard path. In order to both probe the full range of experiences present in the sample and to go deeper into a select number of key topics, six survey respondents were selected for follow-up interviews (representing 46% of the survey sample and 19% of the total number of recently ordained priests). Selections were made following a full analysis and thematic coding of the survey data, using the NVIVO 12 software package. Five interviews were conducted in-person, and one online via Zoom (because the participant was based overseas) during June–September 2023. Since each priest had already given a good deal of information in their surveys, the interviews could be quite targeted in terms of topic. They lasted between 31 and 67 min, with a mean of 47 min. The recordings were professionally transcribed, and then these transcripts were analysed in the same way as the survey responses.

3. Results and Discussion

Taken together, the surveys and interviews provided a rich and detailed picture of the main factors influencing the vocational journeys of recently ordained priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney (and, while it is always difficult to extrapolate, presumably to a significant extent those in other Australian dioceses too). Over the course of the analysis, a select number of key themes, of different types, emerged as being especially significant. What follows is structured according to these themes, grouped into four main categories, each of which has a number of subdivisions. For ease of structure and readability, both the ‘results’ and ‘discussion’ are presented together by theme. The overall plan is as follows:

3.1.

Contexts

3.1.1.

Family

3.1.2.

Schools

3.1.3.

University life and young adult ministries (including World Youth Day)

3.1.4.

Parishes

3.2.

Theology and liturgy

3.2.1.

Views of the priesthood

3.2.2.

Liturgical/devotional formation

3.3.

The Call

3.3.1.

Timing

3.3.2.

Active discernment

3.4.

Decisions

3.4.1.

Diocesan or religious?

3.4.2.

Which rite?

3.4.3.

Why Sydney?

Not surprisingly, in discussing each of these (sub)themes, this report will draw substantially on the direct words of the participants themselves. Quotations will be identified by participant number, between 1 and 13, and mode (‘s’ for survey, ‘i’ for interview), such that a single priest’s experiences can be, to a limited extent, tracked across different sections. Where possible, identifying characteristics have been removed (e.g., names of particular people or parishes), though certain, potentially identifying details may be necessary for comprehension. Evidently, given the small sample, the distinctiveness of some of their vocation narratives, and how well-known some of them will be to others within the Archdiocese, the possibility of reasonable guesses as to who a given number is unavoidable. All participants were made aware of this possibility in advance, as part of the informed consent process.

3.1. Contexts

3.1.1. Family

The fundamental importance of the family for religious formation and development should require little arguing. Within Catholic contexts, there is the familiar idea, or perhaps ideal, that ‘The family is, so to speak, the domestic church [Ecclesia domestica]. In it parents should, by their word and example, be the first preachers of the faith to their children; they should encourage them in the vocation which is proper to each of them, fostering with special care vocation to a sacred state’ (Lumen Gentium 11). Furthermore, a wealth of studies in psychology and sociology affirm the abiding influence of the family over individual members’ religiosities. For example, the single biggest predictor of adult religious practice is the level of religious practice in the home during childhood (see, inter alia, Bader and Desmond 2006; Smith and Adamczyk 2020; Clements and Bullivant 2022; Martyr and Bullivant 2023, pp. 17–18). Not only is the individual’s own childhood practice important here, but so is each parent’s, either separately or (most strongly) in combination. The extended family, too, plays a role: grandparents have a subtle but statistically significant influence over their grandchildren’s (grown-up) religious paths, for example (Voas and Storm 2012; Bengtson et al. 2013, pp. 99–112).

Hence it should come as no surprise to learn that Sydney priests are heavily drawn from practising Catholic families. Of the twelve cradle Catholics, all had a Catholic mother and all but one had a Catholic father. Half were from families with four or more children. To the question ‘When you were a child, how often, if at all, did you attend Mass or other religious services?’, six replied ‘Several times a week’, five ‘Once a week, on Sundays’, and one ‘Once or twice a year’. These levels of practice were matched by both mothers and (Catholic) fathers, with the slight exception that two of the ‘several times a week-ers’ had fathers who only attended weekly.

In addition to regular Massgoing, several respondents reported very high levels of family religious practice:

Brought up in a strong Catholic home. Mum and Dad both practiced the faith and we prayed every day at home. Almost all my entire large and very close-knit extended family practise their Catholic faith and therefore aunties and uncles and older cousins contributed to our formation in faith with our parents. Service to the local parish was strongly encouraged in our family.

(1/s)

Mum taught us prayers to memorise and we were expected to read the Bible when we were younger. We would go on a monthly Marian pilgrimage… to [local shrine] where we would pray the Rosary. Every day, we were taught to begin the day by going to an image of Jesus in the house.

(10/s)

Our Catholic faith was a major part of our family life. We would pray the rosary together every evening. My grandfather would take my brother and me to weekday Mass so that we could practice altar serving… It had a significant impact. I would not be practising if it weren’t for the practice of the Faith being so much a part of everyday life. The focus of the family was on imbuing us children with good habits… Our parents often read stories from the lives of the saints before we went to bed.

(13/s)

Family prayer, Rosary and grace before meals.

(5/s)

Nightly Family Rosary was encouraged by mum. When mum went to visit the sick for Holy Communion on Sundays, some of us will go with her… Seeing mum get up earlier in the morning and kneel by her bedside. She always encouraged us to pray.

(6/s)

Growing up we prayed the Rosary every night, and all of us received the sacraments. We had grace before meals, and often we’d be pretty guarded about the things taught in schools. If (and when) the schools failed to teach the Faith, we’d get some kind of catechesis at home.

(8/s)

Not everyone received quite so large a dose of a ‘rich Catholic life’ (13/i) in childhood. But even those at the lower end of the scale reported what is, in the grand scheme of things, a fairly religious upbringing. For example:

Every member of the family had to go to Mass every Sunday. Apart from that, there were no other times at home when other devotions were recited together. Nevertheless, the house was always decorated with religious images.

(3/s)

My family were cultural Catholics, and would attend Mass together at Easter, Christmas, and for funerals and weddings. We had religious articles around the house. When young, my mother would pray with me before going to bed… My parents were proud to identify as Catholic but had little, to no formation.

(11/s)

That these were the childhoods of future priests is not, in itself, very surprising. However, it is worth considering how relatively unusual these kinds of highly committed Catholic families are. Though increasingly rare, they appear (at least based on this sample) to be producing a very significant proportion of priests.

In line with the research noted above, the extended family could also be important, helping to normalize high levels of Catholic commitment, e.g., ‘Almost all my entire large and very close-knit extended family practice their Catholic faith and therefore aunties and uncles and older cousins contributed to our formation in faith with our parents’ (1/s). This was particularly evident with two respondents whose families belonged to Eastern Catholic churches—Syro-Malabar and Maronite—even though both normally attended their local Latin parishes.

[We had] a big Catholic family in India with lots of cousins, aunts and uncles… When we were in India, our prayer life intensified. My grandmother would take us to daily Mass and we would have daily family prayers in evening with Rosary and various litanies… We often would have priests in the family visit us from India. So having priests around was fairly normal.

(10/s)

Culture carries the faith in Lebanese culture, Maronite culture. Family and faith are big, inseparable things… My grandfather and my grandmother lived a life of generous service to the church so that a life of service, along with very close relationships to priests—[my grandfather] always having priests over, him going to serve at the parish, and all of that sort of stuff—made a vocational culture in our family very normal which I was the beneficiary of.

(1/i)

As we shall see below (see Section 3.3.1), family is naturally an important and proximate factor in the fostering of early vocations. But it is worth noting its less obvious role in laying the foundation for late(r) vocations too:

This had a huge impact on my vocation. Even when I drifted away from fervent practice In my adolescence, having a stable basis to fall back upon (Mass, family prayers and practice), meant that I never drifted too far away.

(10/s)

It laid foundations that I later relied on. I recall returning to the regular practice of the faith after years of having drifted away in the secular world… this sense of the Church being my home, where I belonged, came in large part from my Catholic upbringing… [Praying] was a natural thing for me to do. I knew how to speak to God freely and even look out for how God was working in my life. I was tuned in to a large degree by my upbringing.

(9/s)

3.1.2. Schools

Catholic schooling was fairly common, though not totally so, among the respondents; eight attended Catholic schools for primary and eight for secondary (though not exactly the same eight). Of these, three explicitly cited one or more aspects of their schooling as contributing to their vocational journeys.

One, who attended a Salesian primary school, particularly recalled the positive presence of religious:

There was a Brother who at lunch time on Fridays ran a ‘Dominic Savio Club’. We would watch a slide show on the child saint, and as a sweetener, we’d be given a lolly [i.e., a sweet or candy] as we left. I recall nuns at the school, particularly my first principal, who wore their habits. Later there were other nuns that did not wear their habits, including one who left religious life… There [was also] a Brother who came to the playground before school when the parents were dropping off children.

(9/i)

The other two attended independent Catholic schools run by the Parents for Education (PARED or Pared) Foundation,3 affiliated with the prelature Opus Dei. They stressed the effect that positive ‘daily contact with a number of priests’ (7/s), and more broadly with other ‘vowed’ members of Opus Dei, had on fostering a sense of vocation as something both special and normal: ‘It’s not something that is completely weird and freakish… It’s just part and parcel of, I guess, considering your life options, to put it kind of blandly’ (13/i). The relative youth, and thus relatability, of some of the priests (and especially the school chaplain) was a further plus.

Two other distinctive features of the Pared school experience leapt out from the data. The first is the rich, liturgical Catholic culture.

The sacraments were constantly available, Mass every day if you wanted. There was, I think on Friday, it was all-day Adoration so students could come and go as they pleased. There was a strong Catholic life that centred on the sacraments… So it was a nice continuation from my [highly committed] childhood.

(13/i)

[Their success lies in] helping students develop a life of prayer, providing regular access to the sacraments and spiritual direction to students and solid intellectual formation in the faith. Basically, they provide students with an integrated Catholic culture: the faith isn’t just one isolated part of life in which people sometimes engage, but affects and informs one’s whole life.

(7/s)

The second is the fact that a significant proportion of other students, and thus of one’s friends, were also from highly committed Catholic families. Evidently, schools such as these are doubly selective: only certain sorts of parents will want, and be willing/able to pay, for their children to attend them, and the schools themselves demand a significant level of buy-in from those applicants and their families. This enables them to maintain much higher levels of Catholicity in ‘the Pared bubble’ (7/i) than would otherwise be possible.

In practical terms, what this meant for our future priests was that they had a close network of peers who were (like them) normal, middle-class kids from suburban Australia, but who were disproportionately drawn from highly committed Catholic families and, hence, for whom regular prayer, Mass, Confession, etc., were not in any way culturally alien (cf. Bruce 2014). This does not mean, of course, that all students were equally pious—‘obviously at any school you’re going to have a spectrum’ (13/i)—but still, the average was significantly shifted towards the higher end. (Compare this to the later, high school experiences of our above-quoted ‘Dominic Savio Club’ alumnus: ‘I recall praying as I walked to school. I was maybe the only kid who used to go into the church before I had an exam to ask God for help. If my friends saw me going into the Church before school they would have teased me, so I did it secretly’. ([9/i]; cf. Rymarz and Graham 2006).

The importance of mutually supportive social networks for fostering high levels of religious commitment will be a major theme in the following section (see Section 3.1.3). We will also consider the role of schools when we focus more explicitly on ‘the call’ (Section 3.3.1) and ‘active discernment’ (Section 3.3.2). Here, let us simply quote the following:

That was very standard, that understanding that you’re Catholic and committed, and that’s normal because a lot of other people seem to do it and [their parents] have normal, stable jobs. They’re not—they don’t seem—very crazy. [The school gave you] lots of ways to be a normal teenage boy, but with the faith always underpinning it. So, we’d go and do plenty of sport, have a great time being teenage boys, but always having sacraments there as a crucial part of life. […] There was a significant number of people for who practice in the faith was normal, and so it was almost like the assumed position. So, when things undoubtedly get turbulent in the teenage years and you’re working yourself out, you’ve got a strong group of friends for whom the faith is normal.

(13/i)

3.1.3. University and Young Adult Ministries (Including World Youth Day)

For religious transmission, the late teens and early twenties—i.e., emerging adulthood (Arnett 2000, 2007)—are often make or break time. Whatever habits of religious observance have, or have not, been established at home and school in the previous eighteen years or so are typically disrupted. Moving away, either for work or study, means new people, places, and priorities. These play a major role in setting the trajectory for the rest of a person’s life. As such, for hitherto religious teens, these years can be a time when practice, belief, and/or identity start to slip (see Rymarz 2007; Smith et al. 2014; Bullivant et al. 2019). But, for much the same reasons, they can also be a time of religious conversion, reversion, or—for the already committed—doubling down (Guest et al. 2013; Bullivant et al., forthcoming). As such, effective young adult ministries, and university chaplaincies above all, have a critical role to play here.

This is amply borne out by our data. Several priests emphasized the pre-eminent role of university Catholic life in both galvanizing their Catholic identity and as a highly influential stage of their vocational (pre-)discernment. There was also a widespread feeling that Sydney is particularly well-served in this regard:

In my time, all the chaplaincies were vibrant. [University of] Sydney and [University of New South Wales] were the strongest by far, just because we had the numbers and the resources. Our couple of years was sort of famous for all those vocations that went through… That was a super vibrant time where there was a lot happening… I think the chaplaincies are by far one of the Cardinal’s [i.e., Pell’s] single biggest contributions to culture in Sydney, and the fruit that’s borne is enormous.

(1/i)

I think this was also an important stage in my formation, as I could see people my age taking the faith seriously and entering seminary/religious life. The talks and formation that we had at this stage of our was indispensable. As Cardinal Pell once said to me, ‘If you get them in university, you get them for life’!

(10/s)

Several aspects were singled out by the respondents, including the wide range of devotional and social activities, and the guidance of the Fraterna4 sisters (‘great bunch of girls… they really encouraged me and pushed me when [I didn’t think I was] ready to be pushed’ [10/i]). The most important, however, was simply having a sizeable group of also-committed young Catholics as one’s social circle: ‘all these young people doing all these sorts of [Catholic] stuff’ (1/i) (see Clements and Bullivant 2022). This was true both for those who were already highly committed when they arrived at university, as well as for those who, though already practising, were drawn into deeper levels of commitment by the gravitational pull exerted by their newfound friends. In the former camp, one priest remarked how this was his first real exposure to highly committed young Catholics outside of his family and their Maronite subculture:

When you’re at school, you’re in a complete minority of practicing Catholics, and then the only sort of sizeable Catholic contingent I’d see is all these Lebanese Catholics, and so [I’d think] it’s just our culture that does this. But then going to university and then getting in touch with the local Catholic scene, I’m like, oh, okay, maybe there are other people around.

(1/i)

In the latter camp, note:

I think having other people my age practicing the faith was very important just in my own practice. Seeing other young people and what they were doing was great.

(10/s)

[To begin with,] I’m just barely turning up… But it was good. The people that I met there are some of my closest friends in the faith because we all were, had to be intentional about the faith to believe in a very secular environment…That got me connected with a great Catholic community in Sydney. So you could see that it was vibrant, there was a lot going on. It’s something you want to be part of and so that was an amazing experience.

(10/i)

Given the age profile of the sample, the 2008 World Youth Day in Sydney loomed large, either as something they attended while at university or as having provided a ‘huge, huge, huge’ (1/i) post-WYD boost to the Catholic young adult scene.

It was an incredible event. It changed Sydney. You look at the activity that goes on now compared to before—so we have a lot to owe to the Cardinal and what he did there. So, going to university, the chaplaincy—again, it tapped into that. It sort of opened me up to these other worlds. They were running chaplaincy retreats, Theology on Tap was going on at the time, iWitness5—all these sorts of things.

(1/i)

3.1.4. Parishes

Considering that our whole sample entered the diocesan priesthood, one might guess that parishes—where they can now expect to spend much of their ministries—were a major pull factor for them. But this is not, or rather not straightforwardly, so.

Evidently, all those raised Catholic were connected to at least their local parishes, if not also to others (e.g., Maronite or Syro-Malabar parishes, especially for special occasions). Their generally high levels of Mass attendance mean, moreover, that they must frequently have been at their parish churches and, presumably, also parish events. However, in childhood and teenage years, this engagement is largely inseparable from their family or school contexts. The parish qua parish was mentioned infrequently. Exceptions to this were references to their parents’ parish engagement (e.g., ‘Mum and Dad both volunteered in the parish, Mum would sew banners and Dad would count the money and mow the lawns’ [9/s]), several mentions of altar serving, and the citing of specific parish priests (usually very positively). Since the parish is a ‘community of communities’ (Francis, Evangelii Gaudium 28), then, prior to adulthood, their involvement with the parish was generally mediated by their membership of the sub-communities of family and school. Accordingly, those priests who had relatively early vocations (i.e., entering seminary in their late teens or early twenties), tended not to cite their parishes directly as a factor in their vocational journeys.

Things were very different, however, for those who spent time out in the world as independent adults prior to seminary. In these cases, the role of parishes is much more front and centre. One respondent, who had drifted from regular practice in early adulthood, was ‘reverted’ thanks to a parish Neo-Catechumenal Way group:

At the age of 24 years old. I joined the group called Neo-Catechumenal Way in our parish and the group changed my way of looking at my life because I saw my life, only myself alone and there were no one in my life. The group helped me look at my life with Christ which changed my life.

(5/s)

Another moved to Sydney for work in his mid-thirties. Knowing almost nobody and having been a regular Massgoer (but not much more) back home, his mother told him to find a parish. What happened next is worth quoting at length, since it shows the effect that a normal diocesan parish (and its priest) can have:

[That’s] where everything really started for me in terms of maturing in the faith, growing in the faith… I introduced myself to the parish priest… He said, ‘Okay, well, do you want to help with stuff?’ So, that’s where everything really started from. At that point in time, he was putting together a young adult group.They were living in a parish and [he] wanted to try to form this young adult group after Mass on Sunday. We met, had Bible studies, etc.

That was very pivotal—learning more about the faith, really understanding the faith a little better. Then [through the parish] helping [the Missionaries of Charity] in the soup kitchen… That’s really when prayer life started, sacramental life started to grow… That’s where everything really started from, that parish. I got [involved in] the parish, helped around the parish. Then [the parish priest] asked me if I wanted to altar serve. So, I began that, as well. It was just from there, everything kind of—faith really started, that relationship with God really started to grow.

(6/i)

Note especially here the importance of community and personal relationships. From being alone in a strange city, he was immediately welcomed, involved, and connected with other fellow young adults, those helping at the soup kitchen, as well as the parish priest himself taking a direct interest in his formation.

3.2. Theology and Liturgy

3.2.1. Views of the Priesthood

Canvassing the theological views of recently ordained priests (though worthwhile in itself) was not part of the remit of this project. When such topics emerged naturally, it would be fair to say that our sample trended towards the more conservative end of the spectrum on matters of faith and morals (as has been found in recent U.S. studies, e.g., Vermurlen et al. 2023; Vaidyanathan et al. 2023). One subject of clear relevance here, however, is their understanding of the nature and purpose of the priesthood—hence, what attracted them to it in the first place.

The respondents emphasized having understood, and been attracted to, the priesthood as something set apart: ‘total dedication to Christ’s mission to save souls… total consecration to God… the promise of living each day with a supernatural outlook’ (11/s); ‘a radical following of Christ—a life of intense sacramental service… able to serve people spiritually… a life that involved a radical availability to others… I understood priests to be highly educated… as radically embracing poverty, and owning almost nothing’ (7/s); ‘something sort of dedicated about them’ (7/i); ‘Serving the people of God, offering the Mass, forgiving sins, healing the sick. What attracted me was the great good that a priest could do’ (10/s).

Strikingly, these impressions seem to have been formed both from the lives of saints such as John Vianney and Padre Pio, as well as from priests they actually knew well: ‘All of these elements attracted me, and the majority of priests I knew actually lived their priesthood in this way… my school chaplains would be in the confessional several hours a day, say daily Mass, visit classes’ (7/s); ‘it was a normal thing to have priests come over… I didn’t think of priests as a foreign commodity’ (10/i); ‘being involved in the parish… being around the priests, and knowing the priests very well has just been a really normal thing for our family’ (1/i); ‘Being surrounded by good priests meant that such a vocation was always a possibility’ (3/s). This combination of seeing the priesthood as something radical and challenging and priests as ‘special’ people to look up to, while at the same time knowing (plenty of) real-life priests actually living it out, is a potent one: ‘Seeing many examples of holy priesthood, and having regular personal contact with these priests’ (7/s). Both elements—the aspirational and the attainable, as one might put it, seem to be critical.

At least among those raised in Australia, such a perception of the priesthood did not always come automatically. One respondent, who returned to regular practice in his early thirties (having been raised as a weekly Massgoer), recalled never having encountered the priesthood being spoken of in this way until he began listening to (mostly American) apologetics podcasts:

I heard laymen speaking about how incredible the priesthood was for the first time… I’d never heard anyone speak about how wonderful the priesthood was [before]. It was always just, ‘oh, that’s the priest and he’s just doing his thing’, but when [I heard] someone speak about God using a man to work through, to make the Blessed Sacrament a reality in the world. I think whoever it was said something along the lines of ‘Even if you were the king of the country or the world’s richest man, compared to that, it’s chicken feed. This is the greatest thing a man can do’. I was like, ‘Wow. It is’.

(9/i)

Another noted how jarring he found it as a child, being used (thanks to his family and strongly Catholic school) to a certain model of priesthood, to then encounter a very different (implicit) model when visiting other parishes:

I sensed a de-clericalization of priests in parishes where they were like ‘Don’t call me Father’ or not wearing clerics. It was strange. Why would you try to hide this thing? We want you to be a priest because I can see from these other—a lot of these other priests, these Franciscans, or the [school chaplains], their visibility is part of the job, that people can see them and talk to them, and they make themselves available in that way. I didn’t really understand why they wanted to diminish that aspect. That seemed to me very important.

(7/i)

Given the countercultural and sacrificial nature of the priesthood and the fact that today’s new priests are well aware that they are signing up for a pastorally challenging context, the sustaining and motivating power of this view of the priesthood must not be underestimated:

The celibate life presented a challenge to me, i.e., the prospect of not having a family of my own. But the attractions of the priesthood outweighed the apparent cost of celibacy.

(13/s)

My attraction to the priesthood comes from that high view of priesthood and the Eucharist. It’s like that’s the only reason—that’s the reason I’m a priest, the Eucharist. That’s like the most special thing, I think, in my life.

(9/i)

3.2.2. Liturgical/Devotional Formation

The last quotation nicely tees up the dominant theme of this section. Our priests’ elevated view of the priesthood is naturally bound up with a very high value placed on the Eucharist and, therefore, also on the liturgy.

We noted already (Section 3.1.1 and Section 3.1.2) the very high levels of liturgical participation of our sample in childhood, with six of the twelve cradle Catholics having been more-than-weekly Massgoers (and a further five weeklies). Furthermore, even where the respondents had had a (much) lower period of practice in young adulthood, a period of intense liturgical participation—daily Mass, Adoration—seems to have been very much the norm prior to, or concurrent with, active discernment (something found in U.S. studies too; Kramarek et al. 2023, p. 37). Naturally, given the inseparable connection between the Eucharist and the priesthood, it is no surprise that intense devotion to, and desire for, the former should prompt an attraction to the latter.

We already quoted evidence for this in the previous section. But there is plenty more in the dataset. Indeed, so strong is the level of eucharistic devotion that it is clear that the participants’ theology of the priesthood noted above is itself a consequence of this. For example:

The leading of worship and celebration of the sacraments that most attracted me and formed most of my understanding of what priestly life entails.

(1/s)

I was attracted to the Eucharist the most. I was also attracted to the idea that priesthood would unite me more closely with our Lord than could ever happen in any other way. I felt great love and I wanted to be close to the Lord. I was fascinated by the Eucharist and still am. I see my life and vocation as being grounded in the Eucharist.

(9/i)

Well, from my personal experience, that desire to serve as a priest from a very young age was always inseparable from wanting to be close to the altar, and so serving was a big thing. Every opportunity I could, I would serve Mass… I always saw those two things as the same sort of reality. I was always thinking about serving as a priest as I would serve the Mass—so whether it’d be school, or the parish, or family events, like weddings and family Masses that my [Maronite priest] uncle would organise, and things like that, I would always be the one serving. And so that desire to serve as a priest was always there with that desire to serve Mass…That high theology of the priesthood, and therefore, a proper theology of the Eucharist—I would never have been able to articulate that, but looking back, that was part of my life.

(1/i)

A subtle but sure sense of belonging and wonder when I served at the Altar.

(7/s)

Mass aside, the next biggest liturgical influence on the vocational journey seems to be eucharistic Adoration. Those who attended Pared schools mentioned all-day Adoration as an important feature of their rich, Catholic culture (see Section 3.1.2). For others, however, Adoration was something typically encountered later in life, either at university or afterwards while a working adult, seeking it out at particular churches or in the context of various young adult events.

I think what helped immensely with my vocation was going to Adoration across different parts of the Archdiocese. Whether it be in parishes—in a more personal setting, like a local setting—but also in different retreats, and at the Cathedral. It was always in those moments of Adoration where I felt the Lord calling me to be his priest. You know?… I felt that call the strongest because it was sort of that one-on-one relationship. I can think back to many moments where that was possible… at various places around the Archdiocese. So I think that’s such an important part of discernment. It was something my parish [abroad] didn’t do growing up because the priest was against it. It was like, ‘Oh, no, this is a medieval devotion, blah blah blah’. But then when we got a new parish priest, he started introducing it. Then at World Youth Day, experiencing it there.

Then I remember we were on a retreat with iWitness.6 Our Lord was exposed, and someone was going across. He double genuflected in front of our Lord. It was like, ‘Oh’. Seeing that [outward gesture] helped me think, ‘there’s something different here, there’s something going on here’, that I hadn’t necessarily comprehended. I think in my head I knew the doctrine on the Eucharist at that time. But that outward gesture was so important in making me see it, and feel it at a deeper level. To understand it at a deeper level… So I definitely think Adoration should be something we should do.

(10/i)

Another, encountering Adoration for the first time as an adult following a significant reversion experience, felt somewhat cheated:

There were these great big gaps and I’d been to these Catholic schools. I thought I was Catholic. I remember going into the church and seeing Adoration for the first time and having never seen it before and leaving the church and being so angry that there was this significant beautiful part of the faith—this aspect of the faith—that I was completely unaware of, as a person who had grown up going to Mass, through Catholic schools my whole life, and had never experienced it. That was just the church and the part of the world [i.e., suburban Australia] that I grew up in.

(9/i)

Given all this, it is perhaps not surprising to learn that, while realistic regarding the pastoral realities in many parishes and schools (cf. ‘Liturgically, I find, for myself, I am just a “say the black, do the red”7 guy. I’m pretty plain vanilla. So, even the most bizarre liturgical things, I can just let them slide. It doesn’t really get to me so much’ [13/i]), the participants typically had fairly traditional—though not ‘traditionalist’—liturgical preferences. Furthermore, they often related these to their own liturgical and vocational journeys.

I remember at university we had a Gregorian chant for the Mass. That was the first time I had ever been exposed to it in any significant way… It was amazing to see that. Then it was so easy to join in. It was like, wow, okay, this is something we can all be part of. We’re in the middle of a very secular university and suddenly you’re hearing the Kyrie, you’re hearing the Sanctus being sung. It’s a really counter-cultural moment seeing this ancient thing being sung in a very secular and modern environment. So I remember that very particularly.

(10/i)

So, certainly in the way Maronite Mass was celebrated—that is very clearly there—but I was [also] lucky enough in my local [Latin-rite] parishes, having good, solid priests with great devotion, celebrating the Mass beautifully—that was a big impact on me. Even so, when I would get a bit older and more formed, I would become—really notice it at school with the school chaplain, who was a bit more trendy and that. [I was thinking to myself] ‘No, Father, this isn’t the way you should celebrate Mass!’. and I would still serve >ass for him, but I would be rolling my eyes in Year 11 and 12, thinking, ‘what is this? This is dodgy’. So, certainly having those juxtaposed was a big part… Without ever reading a liturgical document, never reading the Catechism, never reading anything—having any formal formation in the liturgy whatsoever, I would go to a school Mass and say, ‘This is wacky, what’s going on here?’ and really be put off by it—like most things at school. So, I think just having good, solid Mass celebrated in a reverent way according to how the Church asked gave me a sense of, ‘This is how to serve, this is how it’s done, this is how to pray’.

(1/i)

Significantly, given their own experiences, when asked what they think might help encourage future vocations, liturgical culture often loomed large:

Well, that’s a no-brainer. I mean, it’s traditional liturgy. In our seminaries in Australia, all the Australian blokes, the Western guys, will love traditional liturgy, all of them. […] It’s the solemn liturgy, beautiful music, which our parishes—many of our parishes in Sydney—don’t have. They’re a work in progress.

(9/i)

Prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

(6/s)

I think there’s all sorts of research [showing] that parishes with a real eucharistic culture and that culture of Adoration often are [strong producers of vocations]. So I would immediately… foster in any way possible eucharistic devotion in parishes. [For example,] if there’s a parish that’s not doing so well financially, and they only have ugly or damaged items for Solemn Benediction, for example, or Adoration, or they don’t exist at all…. [the diocese should] just fund that immediately so that each parish has the opportunity to be involved in a revival of that kind of culture.

From a liturgical perspective, specifically, anything—basically doing anything in my power to assist priests to rid the local church of all of the poor or abusive liturgical practices that have been happening because it’s just not attractive to young men from my experience.

If I were the Liturgy Office—I think they’ve been starting to do this sort of thing…—but I would immediately petition to, like, quadruple their funding, to try to really train musicians. There are so many people in the parish that are open to learning that give a lot of time, but have zero technical skill. They’re amateur and they would love to be better, but it’s very difficult to do that alone or with a family or when they’re both working two jobs because it’s very expensive to live in Sydney. Not workshops, but like regular lessons. Regular support.

(7/i)

It sounds simple, but getting guys that opportunity to [serve at the altar] when they don’t always do, and encouraging young boys to get involved in serving would be a big thing.

(1/i)

3.3. The Call

3.3.1. Timing

‘Early vocation’ is a fairly malleable concept, and many calls that would today count as such would, not all that long ago, have seemed rather late. However, it is increasingly unusual for men to enter seminary before either completing a degree or spending some years in the adult working world. As such, it seems reasonable to count as ‘early’ those vocations whose active discernment commences in the teens or early twenties (i.e., emerging adulthood), and ‘late(r)’ as anything after that. However, as noted above (see Section 3.1.1), it is worth stressing again that the seed of even obviously late vocations is often not just planted, ‘but sprouts and grows, though he knows not how’ (Mark 4.27) much earlier in life.

God can call anyone, anywhere. But the ability to recognize, hear, and take this call to heart appears to be significantly influenced by context. It is no surprise, therefore, that the minority of priests in the sample who reported early calls—ranging from inklings to firm convictions—in early childhood were raised in highly religious family environments.

I was four years old. What prompted this was my parents often reading stories from the lives of the saints before we went to bed.

(13/s)

I first started to say I wanted to be a priest when I was 4 or 5 years old. My family’s commitment to regular worship and the example of my uncle’s vocation were definitely factors that prompted this. this initial desire never left me but deepened, matured and evolved through the years.

(1/s)

Several others raised Catholic, and who attended Catholic schools, reported first feeling an attraction to the priesthood during primary school:

I first thought of the priesthood when I was in year 2 or 3 as I liked what the priest does at Mass.

(4/s)

I do recall primary school being my first indications of vocation—probably year 5 or 6.

(8/s)

For still others, it was the high school years that initially generated vocational thoughts. This was certainly true for those in ‘the Pared bubble’.

The moment in which I most clearly felt I might be called to the priesthood was in year 7, at 12 years of age. I was prompted by [inter alia] an experience in prayer several years earlier, in which I became acutely aware of having been loved by God.—I had been reading material that was available in the school chapel that explained the concept of vocation… Having taken the question of being called to the priesthood to prayer, I felt scared at the prospect but great joy and peace in the fact that if God has asked me to live a particular vocation, it is in that vocation that I would be most fulfilled, most useful and most holy.

(7/s)

Here, thinking that one might be called to the priesthood was ‘very normal’, at least in the earlier years: ‘[the chaplain] told me later there would’ve been ten or twenty Year 7s that said, “I’m going to be a priest”’ (7/i).

These years were critical for others too. One respondent, who never attended Catholic schools but ‘spent a lot of time in church’ thanks to his family, first ‘felt a call to the priesthood at the age of 16’ (12/s). Another priest raised a ‘cultural Catholic’ whose family attended Mass only at Christmas and Easter, and for whom ‘the priesthood was definitely not on the radar as a child’, experienced a ‘provided an impulse in my teenage years to either take ownership of my faith or abandon it altogether, as I intuited religious practice to require something deeper than unquestioned, cultural affiliation’. He originally ‘began to practice the Catholic faith as a result of my friendship group’, and by the age of 17 felt a strong sense of calling:

My love for the truth of the faith and the experience of joy in knowing Christ through a recently discovered personal relationship moved me to want to devote my life more fully to God. I had a sense that a career and family was, in a strange way, ‘not enough’ to fulfil me or serve God. I wanted to spend my time/life sharing the same faith that I discovered as a teenager.

(11/s)

Finally, at the late end of the early vocation range, we have those who first heard—or, as below, first acknowledged—the call in their university years.

21 is when I first explicitly heard the call, although looking back now, I could see it earlier. At 21, the call felt scary, as something beyond me. But yet, it was somehow alluring and attracted my attention. I was starting to get more involved in my faith and had more responsibilities with it. So I was taking it more seriously. What prompted this was my aunt telling me that if I had grown up in India, I would have become a priest. It made me think about it at a deeper level.

(10/s)

Note here the combined input of both the (extended) family, even at this comparatively mature age, and involvement in the kinds of vibrant Catholic university/young adult scene described above (Section 3.1.3). In this case, the timing was not right—‘I ran away from it’ (10/i)—and, indeed, he recalled one of his university friends entering seminary around this time as allowing him to feel that he was off the hook. God, of course, had other ideas.

Several of those reporting late(r) calls first felt it after a number of years of working successfully in their chosen professions. For these cases, high levels of practice and a close group of similarly committed peers were important background factors. (So too, we might add, was not having yet settled down into marriage and family life.) One such example, for whom ‘priesthood was not on my radar’ (6/s) when he moved to Sydney for work in his mid-thirties, was quoted at some length above (at the end of Section 3.1.4 on parish life). Part of another’s story is worth recounting here:

I was about 32 when I first thought that God might be calling me to the priesthood. At 30 I had returned to the regular practice of the faith, and I had learned a lot about the faith that I didn’t know growing up. I had never heard anyone really advertise or speak well of the priesthood or even suggest why a man might want it. I had never heard anyone articulate how special it was, what an honour it was, how it was the greatest gift a man could ever be given, the greatest adventure a man could ever make in this mortal life.

(9/s)

The idea of vocation was, quite literally, a new one: ‘I didn’t know what a vocation was. I didn’t know the word. The word was new. I had to learn the definition’ (9/i). No doubt partly for that reason, it was also daunting:

I recall feeling that God was calling me to this as I prayed but I was scared of the call and shut it down. I was firstly scared of not having a wife and a sex life and secondly I was scared of being labelled a paedophile since the sexual abuse scandal had just dropped in a big public way. I remember that I noticed that this thought, that God was calling me to the priesthood, retuned to me regularly. I noticed that it was persistent. And I felt in my bones that to shut this call down was going to hurt me in a very real way. It seemed to grow in urgency or grow in strength. After a couple of half-hearted attempts to discern, and drawing my own conclusion that God wanted me to get married, I felt the call very strongly. I remember telling God that I was very scared of this call, and that if I was going to pursue the priesthood—he would need to help me. After a time I came to accept that this is what God was asking and that he would help me.

(9/i)

We will further explore the challenges particular to late(r) vocations in the next section. Here, though, observe that these are probably not the kinds of fears that weigh heavily on the minds of much younger discerners.

3.3.2. Active Discernment

The point at which active discernment begins is sometimes, but not always, clearly defined. Someone who has, since the age of five, ‘always known’ that they would be a priest may well have discussed this sense of vocation with priest-mentors—relatives, school chaplains, parish priests—over a period of years. His final, formal introduction to the diocesan vocations team, perhaps towards the end of high school or (more likely) during university, is thus the culmination of a long period of more informal, but nonetheless active, discerning. At the other extreme, someone active in the Church, but who has never thought a vocation could be for them (or them for a vocation), might have this idea first kindled at a vocations talk or a seminary ‘come and see’ day. They might then pass a period of months or years actively discerning—diocesan vocations events, talks with trusted priests or family members, in prayer, stays at religious communities—while also actively pursuing education or career opportunities before finally deciding to apply or not.

In the answers to questions about what helps in active discernment, two main areas stood out. The first was having a supportive peer group of other discerners, and/or others sufficiently committed to the Faith to value the idea of discerning. This was especially true of those in either strongly Catholic school environments (see Section 3.1.2), or intensely involved in university and young adult (see Section 3.1.3) groups.

Having other young Catholic [school] friends was undoubtedly helpful, as I felt no pressure around joining or not joining seminary from them (I was still accepted and, if fact, encouraged by my peers). To this end, my parish youth group and Opus Dei formation group were [also] very helpful… One friend from my class at school was also particularly important, as I was able to share with him the experience of discernment and application to the seminary. We both joined the seminary [in the same year].

(7/s)

While it was my final conversation with the vocations director which ‘sealed the deal’, the ongoing availability of good Catholic friends provided inestimable support for me. They were men of faith who were also interesting in doing the Lord’s will. It was also helpful that we were all in a season of discernment at the time.… So, we were all there at [our university] all at the same time. We weren’t openly talking about, ‘oh, yeah, I’m going to join, I’m thinking of it’. Some of them, we occasionally had conversations but we all just made our own way, and eventually entered into wherever we entered in our own way.

(11/s)

Other friends discerning a call also help. I was blessed to have good Catholic friends at university who were also discerning a vocation. When one of them entered seminary after university, it also forced me to consider it as an option for me. This is essential. We cannot discern alone! We need others! The university chaplaincies were very important in this; in bringing together disparate Catholics from across the Archdiocese and putting them together in prayer and work.

(10/s)

Note here the (admittedly always relative) normality of seriously thinking about a vocation in these milieus: ‘Very normal. Normal like, “Oh, my brother’s best friend broke up with his girlfriend because he’s joining seminary next year”. Like very, very normal thing to do’ (7/i). Knowing others who were at least ‘vocation-curious’, or who had themselves recently entered seminary, made it all much more real. It also, of course, increased the likelihood of being invited along to vocations events, or simply to go have lunch with your friends at their new seminary home.

The flip side to this is clear from the testimony of those, typically older, discerners more removed from these ‘creative minority’ style groups of young Catholics (cf. Clements and Bullivant 2022). However ‘very normal’ considering the priesthood might be in these subcultures, it is wildly abnormal to many in the wider world. The account of one respondent, first given in the survey and then teased out more fully in the follow-up interview, is highly significant here.8

I recall a feeling of being overwhelmed as I discerned, I recall worrying about telling all my secular friends that I was about to pursue something so mad. A couple of my friends were worried about my decision and amongst themselves were concerned for my mental health.… When I told them that I was going to enter the priesthood, they were worried for me. They thought there was something wrong and they raised it with me very gently.

When I returned to the Faith at the age of thirty, I wondered about my own mental health—I wondered if this return to the faith was me going mental. I remember pushing the trolley around Woolworths and thinking, ‘What’s happening to me?’ I found that I discerned very much in isolation. I didn’t really have good friends in the Church, most of my mates were secular school mates… I began to feel just a little estranged from my normal mates, since reengaging with my faith, I was changing in a way that they were not. I recall feeling somewhat alone in the church and wanting to be with like-minded people, wanting some normal, Australian, like-minded friends in the Church… When I was exploring—like, coming into the Faith, I felt I didn’t really have a lot of other male friends going to Mass. There was a couple of guys, but they were a bit strange. I wanted some nice, normal, funny blokes to hang out with and that. There wasn’t a lot of that. There was a young adults group. That was pretty good, but there wasn’t really close Catholic friendships, which is what I wanted.

(9/s+i)

This is relevant not only for thinking about vocations specifically, but also about the wider Catholic cultures out of which vocations come. This is partly to do with age and state of life: too old/mature for university or young adult events and ineligible for the fellowship of other Catholic husbands/dads that come via (typically more sociable) wives and children. But it also relates to educational and professional choices and opportunities. The close Catholic friendships one makes at university, which often perdure long after, simply do not happen for those who do not go to university in the first place (or for those who did but were not sufficiently involved in the Catholic scene while there). As such, for a thirty-something tradesman with a well-paying job and a bunch of ‘normal mates’:

The vocational call to the priesthood was scary. It was like a step into the utter unknown, a risk, a danger, a potential embarrassment. Nevertheless, God was encouraging me and helping me by giving me spiritual consolations that acted as a carrot to lead me further… When I discerned that God was asking me to be a priest, the vocations director was getting the guys who were discerning together to go out for dinner. There was a couple of really good blokes there. So, that was great, because there were other people that you were aware of that you could talk to on the phone and go and catch up with and that. So that was really helpful. But by and large, a lot of my discernment was done in isolation.

(9/s+i)

Once on the radar of the vocations team, he—like others—found much that was beneficial, both in terms of content and a supportive group of fellow discerners.

Retreats were good, meeting the other men was very helpful… Having a spiritual activity followed by a dinner or some sort of fraternal activity was always good… The most helpful thing for me was meeting with [the vocations director] and the other men applying to the seminary and going out with them for dinner etc. It gave me some new mates who were on the same page and we could call each other and meet up independently.

(9/s)

Other respondents near-uniformly found such events helpful too:9

Talks and retreats are super important in that they give men the time and tools needed to discern a vocation.

(10/s)

The discernment retreat at the seminary really solidified my desire to enter [and] conversations with… the vocations director helped me to articulate and hear the calling as I spoke to them.

(11/s)

Alongside these dedicated vocations events, also important were more informal, personal opportunities. Several priests highly valued private meetings, phone calls, or Masses with the Archbishop, for example, being made welcome, and indeed trusted, helped them feel they might belong. More generally, familiarity with both seminarians and the seminary itself helped them to see themselves in this environment:

It was very good that [a university friend] entered, because it meant that he invited me and another friend of mine, to the seminary a lot just to have a meal. I could see the fraternity that the seminarians had, and it just became a normal thing like, oh, being in seminary, it’s not an unusual thing. These are normal guys. They like music, they like sport, they have a joke, it’s a healthy environment. So that helped in the discernment as well, to see the normal thing that I could do.

(10/i)

My friend invited me to visit the [seminary] for a discernment weekend where I immediately felt at home.

(11/s)

The first time I went there, it was [with a priest who knew I was discerning]. I’d already told him. He said, ‘Why don’t you come along to one of these days?’ When I went there, I was really scared about walking in. So, I drove up and down. I… drove up and down the roundabouts past it, just looking at the place going, ‘Am I actually going to go into that place? Is that going to be home’?

So, I went there. I walked through the door. I had to sign in the book and everything. They were taking us on a tour around the place, just to have a look. This bloke was taking us around the property. There was a dog. There was an old dog around there. I thought, ‘that’s nice’. I like the homey sort of feel. We turned a corner and we went into the carpark and someone had put a witch’s hat on top of somebody’s car, like some mate had done it. It looked really funny. I went, ‘Oh, so they joke around and they have a laugh and that, so that’s pretty cool. I like that’. So those sort of things made it seem more human and think that could be a good place.

(9/i)

3.4. Decisions

3.4.1. Diocesan or Religious?

Diocesan priesthood is not, of course, the only option. Religious life has its own attractions (see Dixon et al. 2018), and so, it is no surprise that some of our cohort gave serious thought to this path. This was not true of all. Some felt a strong, specific sense of vocation to the secular priesthood: ‘I always knew the diocesan priesthood is for me’ (12/s); ‘I did not seriously consider religious life as I was very much attracted to living spiritual fatherhood in the context of a parish, as per the example of Saint John Vianney’ (11/s). For a significant minority of the cohort, however, ‘diocesan or religious?’ was itself something needing careful thought. The Capuchins, Benedictines, Dominicans, Priestly Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP), and Opus Dei all featured in our sample’s deliberations.

I discerned with the Capuchins as I enjoy their service to the poor. What swung me was advice from my spiritual director, who responding to what I said, said that I clearly belonged in the diocesan priesthood. I could never stick to one spirituality; I wasn’t in love with a charism or a saint; I wanted it all. Plus, most of my discernment and spiritual movements were occurring in a parish setting.

(10/s)

I looked at monasteries and started the Rule of St Benedict actually. I love monastic simplicity and take a lot from Benedictine spirituality. I did find, however, over time, and in discussion with my confessors, that diocesan [priesthood] would be better suited for me for a few reasons: (1) the line from the Gospel about putting your lamp in a place where everyone can see really stuck with me. I had gifts I can offer to the Archdiocese that were better served in a diocesan capacity than a monastic one. (2) I love the Latin Mass; but I discerned against joining the FSSP as it would mean too much travelling and being sent to all sorts of places. Australia needs missionary work done here too!

(8/s)

I spoke to a Dominican and spent some time with them discerning but decided against them because the priest that I met with seemed VERY overworked. Coming from a very high pressure job myself, I recognised the stress he was under. It did not attract me. Moreover, I didn’t like the thought of life as an academic. My parish priest and vocations director answered many of my questions, and helped avail me of particular worries I had.

(9/s)

Discernment regarding Opus Dei worked somewhat differently because of its sui generis nature. That is to say, one first discerns a vocation as a numerary and, only thereafter—after a period of years or decades—might one pursue a priestly vocation within Opus Dei. However, for those in our sample closely acquainted with Opus Dei because of their schooling, it was to the priesthood specifically that they felt God was calling them. For example:

While deciding where my vocation to the priesthood might be, around Year 11/12, I was fairly set on becoming an Opus Dei priest. I explored this seriously, and I spoke to the director of my local Opus Dei centre to see if I could apply/join with the intention of becoming an Opus Dei priest. He informed me that this wasn’t possible, as I had to first discern a lay celibate vocation (in Opus Dei, celibate lay members join indicating whether they would be open of not to possibly be asked to discern a vocation to the priesthood). This didn’t sit right internally, as I had already discerned priesthood directly to this point, so I decided not to pursue this.

(7/s)

3.4.2. Which Rite?

As noted above (Section 3.1.1), two participants in this study were raised as members of Eastern Catholic Churches, while also actively participating in their Latin-rite schools and parishes. When discerning their vocations, therefore, they also needed to decide which of their particular churches to pursue it in. For one, raised Syro-Malabar, the decision was almost an automatic one:

I’ve been a bit separate from [the Syro-Malabar Church] because (1) I don’t speak the language, and (2) growing up just didn’t go to it. So when I was sort of discerning a vocation actively it wasn’t really a consideration up until I had to write a letter to the Eparch going, ‘Hey, can you give me permission to go into the Latin Seminary?’ Then he started, ‘Oh, you should discern this, you should think about this…’ He was very open, he was like, ‘Whatever, wherever the Lord’s leading you. But consider it’. It hadn’t been a consideration up until then really.

(10/i)

For the other, raised Maronite and a regular attendee (and server) at their liturgies throughout his childhood and especially teenage years, it required a good deal of thought and prayer. At home in both rites and thus, genuinely torn, the Archdiocese’s much clearer path forward was a major attraction:

When I went to join [the Maronites], there was no clear plan, whatsoever. It was sort of, make it up as you go along, which isn’t very encouraging for a young guy looking to enter. So, while that lack of clarity didn’t make a decision in my mind, ‘I’m joining the Latin Rite’, I did want to go into the seminary then. I didn’t want to wait around.

So, I spoke to the Cardinal, spoke to the Vocations Office, and it was sort of the complete opposite: ‘Oh, here’s what you fill out, this is the application process, you go to a seminary here, this is the normal mode of studies and what you do in formation, and you go through here, and in seven to eight years, you’ll be in service’.

(1/i)

He entered seminary on this basis, ‘completely comfortable one day serving in the Latin Rite’ and open to being an archdiocesan priest, but without having yet made any ultimate decision. When he finally did, at the point of candidacy in his fifth year, he opted for the Archdiocese (though is bi-ritual).

3.4.3. Why Sydney?

Feeling a vocation to the secular priesthood in the Latin rite does not necessarily entail the Archdiocese of Sydney; other dioceses are available. One’s ‘home (arch)diocese’ is not necessarily straightforward, given the tight ecclesiastical geography of the Greater Sydney Area itself. A person might easily live in the Archdiocese but attend Mass or school in the Dioceses of Parramatta or Broken Bay, or have been raised in one of these or another NSW diocese, but attended university or young adult events in Sydney itself. This inevitably, even more so than in other dioceses, adds an element of competition to the Sydney vocations market, even if no diocese or discerner thinks of it like that (or would admit to thinking of it like that).

Accordingly, it is no surprise that a significant number of respondents actively discerned into Sydney from neighbouring dioceses—Parramatta, Broken Bay, Wollongong—in some cases, almost by default, but in others, at a rather late stage in their formation. (NB: Since naming the specific dioceses would make it easy to identify both the respondents and others—e.g., other dioceses’ seminary rectors or bishops—they are redacted in the quotations.) The precise reasons and pathways are often quite complex, and in some cases, very personal. Especially for those who actively discerned with, and/or attended seminary for, another diocese, the process of switching could be ‘very awkward’ (13/i), not least at the level of interpersonal relationships. Rather than dwell too much on the details here, it is worth stressing three main draws of the Archdiocese.

The first is simply Sydney itself: one of the world’s great cities, and with a strong Catholic brand, not least since World Youth Day: ‘Generally speaking… I found that Sydney’s Catholic environment was far ahead of many other dioceses in catechesis, schools, support for vocations and culture that was conducive to fostering vocations. […] Essentially, “You will know them by their fruits” is the reason I joined Sydney’ (8/s). The global, outward-looking city and Archdiocese, part of a much wider Catholic world, was contrasted with the ‘parochialism’ (13/i) of other dioceses:

Sydney has a much bigger culture of universality. I think. I mean, it might also be older generation priests have a bit more of a localised view of the church, and so you—I mean, you still get it in Sydney. But Sydney’s much bigger, and so it’s far more diluted. The younger presbyterate tends to have a much broader, much more universal view of the church. So, that was something that I was attracted to.

(13/i)

Moreover, the city’s gravitational pull over the rest of NSW (and indeed, along with Melbourne, over Australia itself) means that a large number of young adults spend time in the Archdiocese, not least through studying or working there. As such, it becomes an attractive ‘second home’ diocese even for those with roots elsewhere. That also means that those discerning often know and trust a good number of Sydney priests or seminarians:

Partly it was just a social thing. I didn’t know anyone in [home diocese]. A lot of the priests that I was talking to more seriously about this were priests of Sydney. So when the vocations question about diocese and priesthood got very serious, those conversations were happening with Sydney priests primarily… So that was also a factor that naturally led to the direction of Sydney.

(7/i)

The second is that, during a sustained period of relative ‘lean years’ for vocations in Australia, a significant number of smaller dioceses have few, if any, vocations (Martyr 2023). This makes those often larger dioceses that have at least partially bucked this trend all the more attractive. This was so not only for the men themselves but also for those helping them to discern.

Numerous good priests encouraged me not to join for [other diocese], and outlined for me the dangers of joining a diocese that (at that time) had no seminarians… The bishop that was there at the time had produced either none or one vocation in however long that he was bishop. There was no seminary. There were two seminarians that I met when I was in high school from [there], they both left. They were just in a house, just two of them that were in seminary. So I was basically convinced that from the standpoint of: if you want to be a priest and you want to be a good priest, you’ll be putting your vocation in danger by joining there because you’ll be alone and being formed by someone or by a diocese that obviously has issues with around the question of vocation.

(7/s+i)

Rightly or wrongly, the lack of vocations in a diocese sends a worrying signal to others about its care for seminarians (and, indeed, of the kind of Catholic communities that produce vocations). It also augurs a fairly lonely life, both in seminary and beyond. As noted above, several respondents stressed the importance of supportive peer groups in their discernment process. It was natural for them to value the camaraderie/solidarity of other seminarians and young priests as they continued along the path.

The third reason, partly connected to the second, is that Sydney is perceived as being conducive to a certain type of priesthood. In short, it is perceived as a safe space for—as the priests themselves would see it—‘orthodox’ Catholicism. The respondents’ strong theologies of the Eucharist and the priesthood, and their comparatively traditional liturgical preferences, were noted in earlier sections. The basic trend extends to other doctrinal and moral issues too.

I [opted for] Sydney Archdiocese as I thought there would be better support for priests, stronger priestly fraternity, and greater freedom to teach the Catholic faith (particularly on moral matters) in schools and parishes…

(13/s)

For example, the then-vocations director of [another diocese] thought it better for me to side-line my interests in sacred music with the sarcastic question ‘Why? Is As One Voice10 not good enough for you’?

(8/s)

Often, this was bound up with clergy cultures. The prospect of being one of very few younger priests in a diocese meant that generational differences in ecclesial outlook could feel very uncomfortable. In Sydney, while such differences might exist, a critical mass of younger priests permitted what was felt to be a much healthier presbyteral ecosystem: ‘Sydney’s much bigger, and so it’s far more diluted’ (13/i).

4. Conclusions

This article aims simply to offer a fair and accurate summary of the most salient aspects of the vocational journeys of recently ordained Sydney priests, accompanied by a commentary informed by recent sociological research on relevant topics. It is intended as a contribution to the (surprisingly small) literature on vocations within a Catholic context and speaks specifically to the situation of secularizing Western contexts. While Australia-specific (and, indeed, Sydney-specific, given that Australian Catholicism is itself internally diverse), it is hoped that much of what is presented here will be relevant to other countries.

That said, there are a number of key matters arising that it feels worthwhile to highlight as ones perhaps worth further thinking about, especially for those with a practical interest in vocations and priestly formation. These are briefly offered below in the hope that they might prove useful.

The first is that however good a vocations team is, it can realistically only work with the pool of already strongly committed Catholics that exist within the Archdiocese. As stressed above, vocations disproportionately come from those raised in what one might call intensively Catholic families. These are a relatively small proportion even of Mass-going families, let alone of Catholic families as a whole. They are a subset of a subset. In all likelihood, the more such families there are, the more vocations will ultimately be produced. Sydney (like much of Britain and some parts of the USA) is fortunate to have had a steady stream of Catholic immigrants from much more religious parts of the world. It also appears to be fortunate to have both a small number of (Pared) schools that intensively Catholic families might send their children to and enough sufficiently affluent such families who can afford to send them there. Any long-term vocations strategy would, in practice, be inseparable from a neo-evangelistic domestic church strategy aimed at replicating more widely some aspects of the richly Catholic subcultures possible in (especially first- and second-generation) immigrant communities and among the families sending their kids to certain schools.

The second is to highlight the obvious fact that the Archdiocese’s university/young adult strategy over the past decade or two has evidently reaped significant fruits in terms of vocations. This is true not only for the Archdiocese’s homegrown priests but also for those raised in other dioceses and who came to Sydney for university or work. (The role of the Sydney Catholic youth strategy in helping to foster vocations elsewhere in the world—from students returning home after studying here, and/or via WYD 2008—should also be mentioned here).

The third is that, for various reasons, committed young Catholics in Australia (as also in the U.K. and USA) trend towards having a more traditional doctrinal, moral, and liturgical outlook than their parents’ or grandparents’ generations. As briefly explained earlier, in large part, this is a somewhat paradoxical side-effect of secularization: those who are ‘left’ are so for a reason, and so too are the other committed young Catholics they meet after Mass (or Adoration). In particular, strong views of the priesthood and Eucharist (the two being closely connected) seem especially important in fostering a sense of vocation (see Section 3.2.1 and Section 3.2.2). Young men who find the priesthood attractive, despite all the sacrifices, do so because they see it as something set apart and heroic and, therefore, worth all the sacrifices. (Note that this does not prevent them from also being, and wanting to be, otherwise ‘normal, Aussie blokes’.) Reverent liturgy, forms of Eucharistic piety and devotion, and high value placed on the sacraments all seem to help in instilling this.

The fourth and final one is that the methodology developed for this study could, with greater or lesser adaptation, be applied in other contexts. This is most naturally true of Catholic dioceses elsewhere in the world, but there is no a priori reason why, say, Anglican or Methodist (or any other denomination with a ministerial priesthood or pastorate) specific versions could not be successfully developed. Any researchers, or church bodies, interested in exploring such possibilities are warmly encouraged to get in touch.