Building a culture of vocations — the strategy behind diocesan vocational success

In some US dioceses, priestly vocations are thriving.

In 2026, the Church in the United States saw 9% fewer priestly ordinations than it had 10 years earlier.

According to the best numbers available, 342 men were ordained diocesan priests for U.S. dioceses this year. While that number represents a slight uptick from years prior, it also signifies a decline from a decade prior — in 2016, 376 men were ordained U.S. diocesan priests, about 9% more than this year.

Experts cite a number of factors behind a trend of smaller U.S. ordination classes than in prior decades, including the 2018 abuse scandals in the Church, the Covid pandemic, a rise in secularism, the proliferation of pornography, and the breakdown in family life.

But some dioceses have seen steady or even growing numbers of priestly vocations.

The Pillar spoke with bishops and vocations directors from across the country about the contemporary obstacles to fostering vocations, and the factors that can help promote priestly vocations despite those challenges.

Credit: Godong / Alamy.

Regional differences

Regionally, the Midwest and Southeast have the largest groups of priests ordained in 2026, while the regions along the coasts and the Southwest had smaller groups of new priests.

A number of bishops who spoke with The Pillar said they believe smaller, rural dioceses are often fertile ground for vocations because of the simple lifestyle and embrace of religion that is often part of the community.

The Diocese of Wichita, home to 116,000 Catholics, has a thriving vocations program. Six men were ordained priests this year, and 19 are slated to begin seminary this fall.

Wichita Bishop Carl Kemme said a diocesan vocations program was already robust when he arrived in the diocese 12 years ago.

Since then, he has worked to strengthen it further – encouraging priests to share their love for the priesthood with young men, launching a diocesean college seminary, and being intentional about encouraging seminarians from within the diocese itself.

“We pride ourselves in that our seminarians almost exclusively are homegrown,” Kemme told The Pillar. “They know our culture, they know who we are, and they’re fruits of our culture.”

Rural dioceses also tend to have smaller parishes, where parishioners and priests can get to know one another on a personal level, Kemme said.

“The relationship that people have with their priests is much more personal than most big parishes in big cities,” he said. “When you have smaller parishes and there’s a closeness that the people feel with their priests, that helps build relationships, especially with young people.”

The ethos of small towns can also lend itself to vocational discernment, said Bishop Thomas Daly of Spokane. Daly’s diocese had just three seminarians when he arrived 11 years ago. Now, it is up to 19 seminarians.

Daly previously served as vocations director in the Archdiocese of San Francisco and as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of San Jose. He said he believes the sharp contrast in culture between farming communities and Silicon Valley makes a difference in vocational discernment.

“In the tech community, in these big cities, you become the creator…faster is better, and you’re fulfilling a want, not a need. Farming communities, you need patience, because you’re growing crops, you depend upon God for the rain and the soil, and you’re providing for a need, which is food, not a want,” Daly told The Pillar.

“Those things permeate in a community. In a farming community, you’re more aware, I believe, of God.”

Father Cameron Faller sees firsthand the challenges of fostering vocations in the tech center of the country.

Faller is the director of seminarians for the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and previously served as the vocations director for the archdiocese.

In 2026, the 450,000-person archdiocese ordained zero men. While it will welcome six new seminarians in the fall – the largest class since before the pandemic – it has largely struggled in recent years to attract men to priestly formation, despite heavy archdiocesan investment in its vocations office.

Faller said the urban culture, with its emphasis on material success, presents obstacles in fostering vocations.

“The common challenge for urban areas is that what is deemed successful by many families, even Catholic families, is not being a priest,” Faller told The Pillar. “Parents want kids to get into a top-notch high school so you can get into a top-notch college so you get a high paying job.”

Another problem – there aren’t very many young men in the area.

“The cost of living in our area is unbelievable,” Faller said. “It is almost impossible to raise a family if you have more than two kids, so a lot of our people end up moving.”

This has created a shortage of young men in San Francisco, Faller continued. His parish, Holy Name of Jesus Church, has fewer than 10 high school to college age men that attend Mass every week.

“Our crop of potential future priests is extremely small.”

Planting seeds

But some large dioceses are seeing strong levels of priestly vocations.

This year, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia ordained eight men in 2026, and it expects to have 72 seminarians studying in the fall.

Father Sean English, vocations director of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said the success did not happen overnight.

“It’s the visions of our archbishop, Nelson Perez, and the bishops before him: Cardinal Rigali and Archbishop Chaput,” English said. “Right now we’re ‘re-missioning.’ We’re looking at parish life and we’re just trying to rebuild the faith and are seeing a lot of fruit from this effort.”

For 20 years, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia has hosted an annual summer camp, Quo Vadis, which is designed to introduce discernment and seminary life to high school men. This year, 84 high schoolers attended.

Additionally, English spends time working with local parishes and Catholic high schools to promote vocations. One thing he sees as key: access to Eucharistic adoration.

“There’s seeds that have been planted primarily by adoration and parishes that have access to adoration,” English said. “Guys are coming from those parishes.”

In Miami, Archbishop Thomas Wenski ordained nine men in 2026, up from zero in 2016. He attributes part of the success to the changing demographics of the region.

But he’s also worked to encourage vocational discernment, starting at a young age.

The Miami Archdiocese sponsors four “Focus 11” days each year, where local sixth graders gather for Mass, to hear talks, and to meet priests, brothers and sisters from various religious communities.

Wenski attends the events to address the kids gathered, delivering a simple invitation.

“I tell the kids, ‘your parents or your grandparents have asked you what do you want to be when you grow up? But ask the question a different way: what does God want me to be when I grow up? And then try to listen to his answer’,” Wenski told The Pillar.

A culture of vocations

Father Steven Roth, vocations director in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, believes that making young priests and seminarians visible to their fellow Catholics is a critical part of promoting vocations.

The archdiocese stations seminarians in parishes and has them participate in youth groups and young adult ministry, so that seminarians can interact with and encourage young people.

“Our seminarians and our young priests are our best advertisement,” Roth said. “They’re attending dinners or joining in young adult groups and things like that. And they’re just so impressive. They’re joyful and they’re men of service.”

“We’ve had many guys, because of those interactions, decide that they want to apply,” he continued.

With a growing number of ordinations, parishes in Baltimore have recently seen the appointments of more parochial vicars to parishes, and assignment of priests as high school chaplains.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore has 70 current seminarians. It ordained five men this year and will ordain 12 more next year.

In addition, Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore has been intentional in encouraging parishioners to pray for vocations, and in asking priests to personally invite young men to discern, he explained.

“You have people in various spots around the diocese spending a part of their day praying for priestly vocations,” Lori told The Pillar.

“I think that it helps build vocations when it gets encouraged at the parish level, whether that be once in a while a parish priest will tell his vocation story, or simply when a priest recognizes that a young man might have a vocation and offers him a word of encouragement.”

“I really think that helps build the culture of vocations.”

For Bishop Mike Sis in the Diocese of San Angelo, promoting a culture of vocations is about reaching families.

Sis told The Pillar that while family members can be among the biggest encouragers of vocations, they can also be among the biggest deterrents.

“Parents have lots of misgivings about allowing their children to consider the possibility of serving in the Church, full-time ministry, because they have all kinds of hopes and dreams for their children, of producing grandchildren, of sustaining them financially in their old age, of becoming rich and powerful,” Sis said.

Sis encourages his priests to spend time with families, in settings outside the liturgy. And he encourages discussions about vocations and discernment aimed not just at young men, but at other demographics as well.

“If a parent is going to be open to the possibility that God might be calling their son or daughter to ministry in the Church, they need a conceptual basis for understanding that God has a plan and that we are all called to be responsive to God’s will,” he said.

“A culture of vocations is one that accepts the possibility of being called by God to full-time service in the Church. It’s a culture where families learn to accept God’s call despite the misgivings.”

Looking ahead

While official counts of seminarians for the next year are not yet available, several bishops and vocation directors told The Pillar that they have heard that seminary numbers across the country appear to be increasing.

Asked what they believe to be responsible for this increase, bishops and vocations directors listed a variety of factors, including a faith resurgence among Gen Z and an American pope.

“We Americans find Pope Leo extremely relatable. His own priestly example and his example as a missionary bishop, I think, is a beautiful thing and his own encouragement of priestly vocations has been extremely warm,” Lori said.

“The Eucharistic Revival, no doubt, has assisted in the encouragement of vocations,” he added.

“I also think that this might be… the revival of faith among young adults that we are seeing in almost every diocese in the United States,” Lori said.

Daly also pointed to the resurgence in the Catholic faith that seems to be taking place throughout the country, particularly among young people.

“At our Easter vigil, at the cathedral in Spokane, 84 people received sacraments,” Daly said. “With all the new seminarians also, we seem to be approaching what may look like what happened in France after the revolution, where there was this great outpouring of grace and religious fervor and zeal.”

“Many of the guys that I’ve interviewed over the last couple years, a lot of them have recently reverted to the faith or even some converts,” added Father English from Philadelphia.

“They have this desire to be part of a community, desire to have communion with the Lord, they have this desire to serve the Lord.”

These factors could lead to increases in priestly ordinations in the years to come. For some dioceses in the U.S., that would be a welcome sign of renewal.

For others, that renewal already appears to be present.

In the Diocese of Crookston, Bishop Andrew Cozzens has been emphasizing vocational discernment since his 2021 installation.

Cozzens said that while there was much good being done in the diocese when he arrived, half his active priests were within a decade of retirement.

Cozzens assembled a vocations team, encouraged priests to be active with youth groups and high school students, and started a Sierra Club to support and pray for priests and seminarians.

Today, he said, vocations are growing, both in Crookston and the surrounding dioceses.

In fact, Cozzens said abundant vocations could eventually cause a new problem.

“Everybody’s hopeful about the future in my region,” Cozzens said. “The seminaries are full. We are starting to get worried that we’re not going to get our guys in, because they’re full.”