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Vocation Information
If you are looking for resources on vocations to priesthood or religious life, begin your search with the following websites:
The National Coalition for Church Vocations: NCCV promotes Catholic Church vocations by providing quality resources for vocation awareness, education and discernment. NCCV publishes a Vocation Resource Catalog (VRC) that contains more than 300 vocation resources.
National Religious Vocation Conference (NRVC): The NRVC is a professional organization of men and women committed to vocation awareness, invitation and discernment to consecrated life as brothers, sisters and priests. It publishes Vision magazine in print and online formats. It sponsors VocationMatch.com, an interactive matching service that helps people find a community that best fits their interests. A new resource (May 2008) for catechists helps them understand the vocabulary of the vocation world and lists resources. It is a four-page booklet called The Ministry of the Catchist in Promoting Religious Vocations.
National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors (NCDVD):The National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors promotes diocesan priesthood, providing resources for the training, support, and advocacy of diocesan vocation directors as they work with the church to foster a culture of vocations, raising up new priests for the Body of Christ.
Theological Studies: For a list of schools offering online programs in theological studies, visit this page on the US Catholic conference Web site.
Vocation Stories: University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Chicago has published a book called Vocation Stories: Stories of Priesthood. It can be downloaded from this site. It has links to a vocation section as well.
The Knights of Columbus: Supporting priestly and religious vocations is a top priority of the Knights of Columbus. Four K of C initiatives:
- Refund Support Vocations Program (RSVP) The Supreme Council encourages local councils to support vocations by giving a $100 refund to a local council whenever it donates $500 to a seminarian or postulant.
- Vocations Scholarship Fund
KofC maintains a vocations scholarship endowment fund, from which annual scholarships of $2,500 are awarded to deserving seminarians.
- Support of Seminarians Abroad
The Knights of Columbus also has funds to support the missions of the national colleges for priestly training in Rome: the North American College, the Pontifical Canadian College and the Pontifical Mexican College. Another fund supports the American College in Louvain, Belgium.
- Keep the Faith Alive
This series promotes vocations awareness through full-page color advertisements on the back cover of each issue of Columbia magazine. Each month features pictures and a vocation narrative of a person who has chosen to answer God's call to the priesthood or religious life.
Serra USA sponsors several parish-based programs:
- Called By Name
- The 31 Club
- Altar Server Programs
- Serra Club Vocation Essay and Poster Contests
- Scouting
- Parish Vocation Resources, and more.
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