Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of February is for vocations to the priesthood and religious life, and Father Dave welcomes Rhonda Gruenewald to discuss how we can better foster those callings. Rhonda is the president and founder of Vocation Ministry, which works internationally with parishes and schools to establish or revive their own vocation ministries on the local level.
Rhonda explains how a priest first asked her to lead a ministry for vocations at her own parish in 2011, though she had little knowledge of what to do next. This eventually led to her founding Vocation Ministry, which is now in its 10th year of supporting dioceses who foster vocations in their own communities. “This was all born out of a need of the Church, that there just really weren’t resources to tell priests or parishioners [what to do],” Rhonda says. “We assume priests know everything about this, because they discern their own vocations. We expect them to know exactly what to say and how to walk with young people, but that is not the case. They need language and advice.”
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Vocation Ministry also compiles data and analyzes trends surrounding current vocations to the priesthood, most recently in their updated 2025 report, The State of Priestly Vocations in the United States. “I think that people know that we need more priests, but they don’t know the whole situation,” Rhonda says. “We’ve found that only 16 out of 175 dioceses in the United States are actually ordaining more priests than they need…so that’s rough news for everybody to digest, and there’s a lot of work to be done everywhere.”
“There are some highlights for sure in each diocese, but it seems what we have found is that the larger the parish and the diocesan setup, the harder it is for priests to have those connections and relationships that are absolutely necessary to inspire vocations,” Rhonda continues. “It takes an initial invitation…about 80% of newly ordained priests were inspired to be a priest or invited to discern priesthood by a priest, but only 30% of priests are actively inviting. So we have a disconnect there.”
While priests can have a great influence, Rhonda explains how supporting vocations is a collective. “This is a work of the Holy Spirit, but we actually have to work,” she says, “Fishing is an active verb. If we’re fishing for men to be fishers of men, we have to be hauling the fish into the boat. We don’t sit in the boat waiting for the fish to jump in; that is not how this works.”
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Rhonda offers a few suggestions for local parishes to help foster all vocations. “Start Adoration for vocations,” she says. “Actively bring in witnesses to [different] vocations; priests, brothers, sisters, and married couples, so that people can be inspired by them. Go take a group to the seminary. These are really simple things, but they can be very impactful.”
“We need all the boats to rise,” Rhonda continues. “We need priests, sisters, consecrated virgins; we need all forms of consecrated life. We need holy matrimony to be a witness in this world. The only way to do that is to start, to be intentional, and to say, ‘this is important.’”
