If we want to revitalize religious life, we need to rethink our methodology. Instead of asking people whether they desire religious life, we should ask them whether they desire salvation—whether they desire to become saints

Sacrificing Religious Life on the Altar of Egalitarianism

by Br. Justin Hannegan

Young Catholics are spurning religious life. According to the Official Catholic Directory, there were only 1,853 seminarians studying for American religious orders in 2011. 

That’s less than half the number of religious seminarians that were studying in 1980 (4,674), and less than one tenth the number that were studying in 1965 (22,230), according to Kenneth Jones’ Index of Leading Catholic Indicators. 

Even the most successful religious orders are suffering. 

The U.S. Dominicans boast of increased vocations, but today they have only about 100 student brothers (compared to 343 in 1965). Dominican vocations may have increased in the past few years—likely as a result of perceived orthodoxy, strong community life, and aggressive promotional efforts—but they are still anemic. Orders like the Dominicans look successful only because everyone else has hit rock bottom.

According to Jones’ figures, 

• the Passionists went from having 574 seminarians in 1965, to 5 in 2000. 
• The Vincentians went from 700 to 18. 
• The Oblates of Mary Immaculate went from 914 to 13. 
• The Redemptorists went from 1,128 to 24. 
• The same story holds for the Jesuits, OFM, Christian Brothers, Benedictines, Maryknoll Fathers, Holy Cross Fathers, Augustinians, and Carmelites. 

American religious vocations have been decimated, and they remain decimated today. 

Religious life in America, therefore, continues its precipitous decline: according to the USCCB, compared to the 214,932 American religious in 1965, there were only 102,326 religious in 2000; 84,918 in 2006; 80,137 in 2008; and now 69,405 in 2013. 

Of the 69,405 religious who remain today the average age is close to seventy years old.

What happened to religious vocations? 

• Some commentators blame heterodoxy within American orders. 
• Others blame our glitzy, debauched culture. 
• Still others blame a prevailing spiritual malaise amongst Catholics. 

But there is another cause for the vocations crisis that commentators fail to recognize: vocations directors, counselors, and authors, despite their best intentions, systematically undermine religious vocations.

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