Delegates at a recent congress in Rome for Vocations Directors have learned that there is a slow but gradual rise in the number of young people entering into religious life across Europe.
However, Pope Francis who addressed the meeting, warned participants not to avoid using the word ‘vocation’, noting that some communities had done this in the recent past, thinking the word would deter young people from answering the call He said this is a strategy doomed to failure and what is needed are men and women “set afire by their encounter with God” and “capable of proclaiming in their lives the happiness born of their vocation”.
At the congress, the Pope also stressed that those involved in promoting vocations should not be proselytising or focusing on vocations for individual congregations but rather should create a culture of vocation.