A few priests and old ladies throughout my life have either suggested or firmly believed that I should become a priest. Without context, that sounds like a pretty strong message from God that I should do so. However, if we reveal the context, and the broader picture of vocation and population trends, it is clear that I am not called to become a priest.
Here's the context. Most of the times I have experienced those priesthood recommendations, there were one or all of the following factors. The first is that all but one instance I can think of happened after I entered my 20s, the ripe age for attending a seminary. The second is that I am not with family members at mass (as has been the case when at college and after I moved out). The third is the outward reverence some have seen me do at mass. Now that all three factors are usually present, I seem to be getting those comments slightly more often.
Other Catholic single young men I have known have also had these same experiences. Coincidence? I think not! In fact, this specific demographic group - Catholic single young men - experience this so much that it's the stuff of memes, like this one from the Catholic Memes page on Facebook. Therefore, it seems reasonable to say that those who tell us we should be priests are just putting these factors together, no matter how much they might believe God told them so.
Prayer and passion for vocations, at least in the United States, chiefly focuses on vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life (as in being a monk or nun). Let me just say that this is an honorable thing, with the reasons why, before I move on to the crisis that is being ignored. The Catholic Church could always use more priests, monks, and nuns who serve God with their whole heart, mind, and soul in obvious ways. These include staying single, living in a building dedicated to God, and punctuating their days with frequent prayers such as are found in the Liturgy of the Hours. If you look at statistics on catholic-hierarchy.org, you'll also see that the number of priests, monks, and nuns has generally been dropping. It's not dropping like a rock, but it is dropping, so it's no wonder there has been so much attention paid to recruiting more priests, monks, and nuns.
What many Catholics fail to notice, however, is that Catholic marriages are dropping too. Marriage is a vocation, and I bet many don't even know that. Holy Matrimony is the sacrament you undergo to get married, and Holy Orders is the sacrament you undergo to become a priest. It turns out that marriage as a vocation is declining much more than the celibate vocations. This Catholic News Agency article reports the decline in marriages is about twice as much! God Himself seems to be in favor of more marriage vocations than celibate vocations. While I can only provide anecdotes, I know of more Catholics who discerned a vocation to marriage in the 2010s and 2020s than Catholics who discerned a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life. One of my recently married friends was often told he should be a priest before he got engaged. On two occasions, I have replied to someone who said she believes I should be a priest that God is calling me to be married instead. On both occasions, I was not taken seriously, especially when I admitted that I've never had a girlfriend. I even find that a little insulting. Should I be a priest just because a few people notice I don't have a young woman sitting next to me? Should all young men desiring marriage just give up and apply to a seminary if they're single longer than their peers?
Those who have commented that I should/will be a priest have ironically said so during times when the priesthood was not on my mind. Yes, there was a time when I was thinking about becoming a priest. That was from 4th through 8th grade, from the time I began altar serving to the time I doubted my faith. It seemed to me like a reasonable occupation for an altar server to seek, and I had difficulty imagining myself as a married man in the future at the time. Nobody ever said anything about me becoming a priest at that time. Was it because I was still a boy?
Moving on to high school, I experienced doubts for most of that time and never gave any vocation much thought. After a transformative pilgrimage to Rome and some good theology classes, however, my doubts went away, and I started giving vocations some thought again. I was told about three major vocations: the priesthood, consecrated life, and marriage. It was up to me to discern which vocation God was calling me to. I prayed in various ways about this, particularly during a Lenten retreat. I didn't quite understand why, but marriage seemed to be the vocation God was calling me to.
The answer to which vocation God is calling me to became clear during a Bible study at college. We were reading from 1 Corinthians 7, where St. Paul gives advice about celibacy versus marriage. He seems to prefer that men and women be celibate so as to give God undivided attention. However, St. Paul also says that those who struggle to control their passions should be married. I am one of those, as my only habitual sin involves lustful thoughts. Nobody who has ever told me I should be a priest ever knew that about me. And what St. Paul said makes a lot of sense. It is better for one who has sexual fantasies to follow through with his wife, producing good, than to be a priest and have sexual fantasies in vain, producing evil (and scandal to boot).
There is also a shortage of not just marriages but also the fruit of marriages, namely children. In over half the countries of the world, the fertility rate right now is below the replacement rate, which means that more people are dying than being born in those countries. You don't have to be a pro-life Christian to understand that this is a problem. Many economists and historians have pointed out how sub-replacement fertility rates cause not just population declines but also the collapse of civilizations in general, as Peter Zeihan points out in the book The End of the World is Just the Beginning. I guess China didn't even "need" a one-child policy if most people chose to have no kids or one kid, anyway. Of course, China itself realized that a one-child policy was a bad idea and now struggles to force its citizens to have more than one kid. I don't think the government should tell you how many kids you should have. We should, nonetheless, remember that marriage is a vocation, and that marriage is needed even more than the priesthood right now. Ideally, parents should have enough kids so that at least one of them can become a priest, monk, or nun, and at least one of the other kids can get married and prevent that family's extinction. I believe we are taking the wrong approach in assuming that devout single Catholics should be priests, monks, or nuns without even considering that he or she might be called to be a husband or wife. We should encourage vocations to marriage just as much as we encourage vocations to the priesthood or consecrated life.
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