Fr. Don Calloway is the Director of Vocations for his religious community, the Marians of the Immaculate Conception. He was recently interviewed by Msgr. Jim Lisante for the radio version of Personally Speaking, a production of the USCCB's Catholic Communication Campaign.
The complete interview was broadcast in two parts (see podcasts, here and here) and is well worth a listen to just to hear Fr. Calloway's inspiring personal journey.
The subject of vocations came up in the second podcast. One question and answer at about the 4:20 mark really got my attention (my transcription and emphasis):
MSGR. LISANTE: Fr. Don, first of all, is there in fact a significant shortage of priests and religious and, if there is, do you find as an antidote to that that there is still out there a hunger to serve God?
FR. CALLOWAY: I have to say as vocation director my community is getting tons of vocations. We're going to be accepting nine more men this summer.
MSGR. LISANTE: Wow!
FR. CALLOWAY: Yeah, they're great guys and they're young guys and most of them have had their own conversion experience of one type or another.
But what I'm finding is there are certain places were there are very few vocations and there are places where there are tons of vocations. Where you have faithfulness and where you have people seeking to live the truth - as hard as it is - but when you have the people who are humble and seeking to live the truth you have tons of vocations. But the places that tend to be more liberal or more crazy in their ideas and not humble and surrendered to the truth, well, they're not getting any vocations.
Just one more piece of evidence that DOR's priest shortage is pretty much a self-inflicted wound.
5 comments:
This guy gets it.
~Dr. K
Yes, Dr. K. this priest really gets it. You should hear him tell his conversion story. It was on EWTN maybe 2 years ago. This kid was a freak. There is a guy who goes to OLV who was in the seminary with him. If you ever get to listen to Father Calloway's life story (and vocation) it will shake you up.
Archbishop Eldon Curtiss of Omaha has many vocations due to his orthodoxy. Read this link
http://www.ewtn.com/library/BISHOPS/WHATCRIS.HTM and this one
http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=3518&grupo=Lifestyle&canal=Vocation
How do I get links hypertexed?
Choir,
To add a link to the word "target" use the following code:
<*a href="URL">target<*/a*>
Replace URL with http://whatever. Also, you will need to remove (not replace with a space) each of the 3 asterisks for it to work.
Thanks for the links, Mike. I'm always "up" for a good conversion story.
The parish I attend (in the diocese of Valleyfield, Quebec) has not had a single ordination to the priesthood in MORE THAN 100 YEARS!!! Don't know about candidates for the religious life, but our pastor mentioned this at the centennial observations for the parish a few years ago. Sad ... but the longer I attend here, the more I understand why. Our pastor once said to me "Whenever anything comes from Rome, we close our eyes." No wonder there haven't been any priests from here.
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