‘This Is the Greatest Thing a Man Can Do’: Vocational Journeys of Recently Ordained Catholic Priests in Australia

Abstract

In many Western countries, the Catholic Church (like several others) is currently suffering a vocations crisis. Australia is no exception. Each year, dioceses see more priests retire, die, or leave the priesthood than new ones are ordained. For this reason, it is becoming increasingly mission-critical for dioceses to understand better the vocational journeys of those men who do become priests. These are also, of course, groups of considerable sociological interest: what motivates them to do (and become) something so countercultural? This article presents the main findings from a qualitative research project exploring the vocational journeys of recently ordained (i.e., within the past ten years at the time of the study) priests in the Archdiocese of Sydney, New South Wales.