Selling Vocations

One side of the revolving cutout, 4 ft. high, showed a pert teen-ager dressed for her high school prom; the other side pictured the same beaming lass clothed chastely in the religious habit of a nun. "This Could Be You," said the accompanying sign. The display, put up by Wisconsin's Cenacle nuns, was one of 60 competing exhibits that gave Milwaukee's municipal Auditorium and Arena the look of a spiritual bazaar. The occasion: Wisconsin's 16th annual Catholic Action convention.

The sales message, addressed to 10,122 Roman Catholic teen-agers from 15 states, came hard and soft. The Servants of the Most Holy Trinity propped up a sketch of four black-robed missionaries raising a cross, like marines planting the U.S. flag on Iwo Jima. Ohio's Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus used a picture of a missile. "Ask about your place in and beyond outer space," read their sign. The Religious Hospitalers of St. Joseph from Montreal, who last year used the rocket theme in urging girls to "get into orbit with Christ," this time settled for a display of nun-garbed dolls. "The rocket didn't work out too well," recalled Sister Gladys. "I'm afraid we attracted more boys than girls."

The most startling exhibit was put up by the Redemptorist Fathers: a stuffed anaconda from the jungles of Brazil, where the congregation operates missions. "It's a great crowd-stopper," explained Father John Morton, who takes the 20-ft. serpent with him on his cross-country pursuits of vocations. "Everybody has a gimmick. This is mine."

The most eloquent spiel, perhaps, came from Father Richard Madden, a Discalced (sandal-wearing) Carmelite whose life of Christ, written for teenagers, once had the working title of The Divine Rumble. "I've got a sneaky feeling that teen-agers are coming up with a lot of reasons why they don't want to be priests or nuns," he told 6,000 students at the convention. "A magazine took a survey. One kid said, 'I don't like Latin.' So he'll never be a doctor; who likes blood? He'll never be a dentist; who likes bad breath? He'll never be a ditchdigger, even; who likes dirt?"

Vocational directors use gimmicks as a prelude to serious, persuasive guidance. If a youngster is moved to enroll, all Catholic orders use meticulous procedures to screen genuine vocations from flash-in-the-pan enthusiasms. "We feel we should supply the information," says Brother Eymard Salzman of the Brothers of the Holy Cross. "God supplies the grace."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.