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All vocations are local
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All vocations are local

Never mind papal generations, you know what has a massive influence on vocations? Family, friends, parish priests, and prayer.

Stephen White
Jun 20, 2025
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The Pillar
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A priestly ordination at Westminster Cathedral in London, England, on June 27, 2015. © Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

Catholics often talk about the “John Paul II Generation.”

The phrase applies to many Catholics of a certain age, but particularly to priests who saw in the charismatic Polish pope a model of what it means to be a priest in the contemporary world.

Perhaps to a lesser degree (it was a much shorter pontificate, for one thing) there is also a “Benedict XVI generation” of priests, whose theology liturgical style reflects the example set during that pontificate.

In the case of both the “JP2 generation” and “B16 generation,” the names reflect more than the simple fact of who happened to be pope when Fr. So-and-so was growing up or in seminary or ordained.

Both names suggest a kind aspirational, imitative quality not too dissimilar from how many young men aspire to grow up to be like their fathers. So you might hear a priest say, “It was the example of Pope John Paul II that made me want to be a priest.” Or, “I saw in Pope Benedict an image of the sort of priest I wanted to be.”

I was recently asked, in the context of some of the survey work I have been doing about American priests, “Is there a ‘Francis generation’?”

The answer to that question seems to me to be “No.” At least not in the United States. In my experience (which is admittedly far from universal) there are young American priests who see Francis’ pontificate as a reference point for their own priestly ministry, but in contrast not emulation.

My interlocutor put it much more starkly: “If there is a ‘Francis generation’ of priests in the United States, they’ve mostly joined the SSPX.”

I’m not exactly sure how earnest he was in this assessment, but the point was clear enough.

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