Why Your Parish Isn’t Producing Vocations w/ Fr. Travis Crotty

Most parishes say they want more vocations. But few are building the kind of culture where vocations can actually grow. In this episode, Jon sits down with Fr. Travis Crotty, Vocations Director for the Diocese of Sioux City, to unpack what’s really behind the decline in vocations and what parish leaders can do about it.

They explore why the “vocations crisis” didn’t start today, what healthy vocation-producing parishes have in common, and why programs and posters aren’t the solution.

The conversation gets practical. At the center of it all is one simple truth: vocations don’t come from strategies. They come from a lived, visible, joyful faith.

If you want more vocations, you don’t start with recruitment. You start with culture.

Key Takeaways

Vocations grow where faith is lived, not just taught

The real vocation gap began 30 years ago, not today

Exposure to priestly life makes discernment possible

Families create the seedbed through sacramental living and witness

A personal invitation is one of the most effective catalysts

Notable Quotes 

“Everybody wants somebody else’s son or grandson to be a priest.”

“A life lived in relationship with Jesus and his Church is better than a life lived without him.”

The show is sponsored by Briar Cliff University.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Before we begin, we just want to let you know that Catholic Ministry Professionals is brought to you by Briar Cliff University. Briar Cliff provides a vibrant community, top-notch faculty, and cutting-edge programs that empower you to reach your full potential. So whether you're pursuing a degree in business, healthcare, or the arts, Briar Cliff can provide an environment where you can thrive. Learn more at Briarcliff.edu to start your transformative academic experience. And now, on with the show. Father Travis Karate is within the Said it out loud. I said it out loud loud. Hey, listen, leaders talk about the elephants, okay? Father Travis Karate is here. He is the vocations director for the Diocese of Sioux City, and he's joining us today. Father, welcome to the show. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Good to be back.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

It is good to be back. I think you are the most returning guest we've had on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Exciting. Um if you're watching on this video, I'm trying to sit close to John, but not too close to John.

SPEAKER_00 1:22

Well, you you know what? It actually shrinks out a little bit just for the purposes of the Trevor Burrus. So it looks a little bit better. So it looks yeah, yeah. So we're we're fine. We're good. But we are about as close as two men want to be. So we're gonna get through it together, though. I appreciate you being here. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Yeah, it's good to be here.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

Um I I know who you are. Some of our listeners aren't in the Sioux City area, so they might not know about you and who you are and what you do. So just give them a little bit of time, a little primer on who Father Travis is um and what the heck it is that a vocations director does.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Aaron Powell That's a good question. Still trying to figure it after four years. Uh Father Travis Crowdie grew up in a small town in the Diocese of Sioux City in Northwest Iowa, where we are here recording on this solemnity of St. Joseph. I so grew up in a small town, went to Katha Grade School, it closed when I was in fifth grade. There's only five kids in my class. I was the only boy. Had four shots and then missed those. Wow, you really don't know. Yeah. Um I went to college seminary uh in Missouri. I went to grad school in uh Denver and St. Louis. I was ordained in 2020 during COVID, and then I was actually here uh in Lamar's um for two years, and I've been in Sioux City with a combo of jobs, none of those being a normal parish priest for the last four years. I'm the vocation director, which means I'm the guy helping young men. I'm accompanying the through the process of discernment and application to the seminary. And then I'm the chaplain of a high school in Sioux City, Bishop and High School, chaplain of Briar Cliff, your alma mater. I help out with the evening mass there. Then I live at our cathedral, and I'm like the first coverage guy because I can also speak Spanish. And so all the combination of all those things, it does give me the freedom. I do travel around the diocese a lot, and I have opportunity to do different youth ministry opportunities. So just this past couple weeks, it's like gave a theology on tap to young adult group in Okuboji. I gave uh vocations night in Manning, Iowa, close to Carroll. I visited different high schools and did a few different things like that. I do a lot of that stuff as far as kind of um I don't know, I I don't like using the word uh recruiter, right? I think some people like an RV recruiter. No, I think that I think people honestly think that. Oh, you're a recruiter. I'm not trying to recruit guys to the priesthood, but I am trying to propose, you know, in a unique way. My hope is that every this is what we're gonna talk about today. My hope is that every parish priest is their own vocation director of their own parish, right? So my job is not to be the only person promoting vocations in Northwest Iowa, but in a particular way I have a unique opportunity to promote the priesthood, to share about it. And my predecessor, Father Shane, once said he's been on the podcast too. We were talking about where to spend your time, and he just said, you know, Travis, like anywhere where you can help continue to build the faith in young people, that is building a culture of vocations. So so that's that's a good thing. Now I'm still discerning often where I should go when I should go, because there's a lot of things I could be doing, a lot of invitations I receive.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah, so that's the one, you know, kind of piggybacking off of what you said there's more than just one vocation. There's multiple options, but anywhere where you promote holiness as a way of life, it will necessarily build up the vocations.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

Is is what I you know, that's how I see it. And as we've talked, I I see the fruit of that in the work that you that you do. But I I kind of want to start at the top, I want you to paint a picture for us because you do get the opportunity to you get invited into a lot of different communities. That's right. And and you you get to go around and see a lot of what is and maybe some of what isn't working. But I I want to tell tell us a little bit, paint the picture of what a parish looks like that is producing vocations. You know, what's different about it? You know, one of these healthy communities, healthy cultures where vocations are being built up. What does that look like? Or what would it look like?

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Well, I want to share something from the past, then maybe just some a couple experiences that I've had in and outside of the diocese. There was a number of years ago I was teaching Todis to us, and in one of our parishes, this is so classic when we we give out those vocation posters with the seminarians on it. People always forget where they hang those up, and then there's like a four-year-old one where half the guys are in seminary, more guys are ordained priests, whatever. But there was one in the basement of a certain church, I forget where it was in our diocese, where there was like it was, it felt vintage. I wish I would have kept it. It was a vocation posters from the 90s that Father Hughes had put together. And it had the guys in the middle in a big picture with the bishop and vocation director, but it listed every parish of our diocese and every priest that ever came from those parishes. And what was cool was you expected to see like the big towns in our diocese. So it's like Fort Dodge, those parishes had a lot of vocations over the years, Sioux City parishes. But then you'd get like Hospers, Iowa, small town that's never been that big, like 20 guys ordained priests. Willie, Iowa, this little tiny town outside of uh Carroll, multiple priests, tons of religious sisters, one of them who became Bishop Greteman of the diocese, right? So it's just unique to see it's like there's nothing I think we want to look at sometimes and say, well, it's the Catholic school, that's what produces vocations. Well, it's uh it's the size of this community, it's the really nice parish, it's the really beautiful liturgy and all this stuff. Sometimes that stuff is really helpful and adds to a culture of vocations. But I look at that poster and I was like, what was in the water in Hospers, Iowa that was encouraging so many vocations? You know, what was what was happening, what was going on? Did you figure it out? Well, I think there's one piece that that's really important. And I know that um, you know just to kind of cite my source here, Father John Burns of the Diocese of Milwaukee is doing this particular ministry, has been for a few years, of trying to re- uh invigorate and re-encourage, re-encourage, it's not a word, but just encourage again vocations to religious life. And so he asked the question like, so where have all the sisters gone? When I've talked to old priests, what's been really kind of important to hear is that back in the day, it was actually the religious sisters in the schools who probably did the work of vocation promotion the most. But you know, you have 20 nuns, 20 sisters in a school. All these kids are going to school with them. They're seeing these women who are living out their own religious vocation who are constantly encouraging the young people to think about God's plan for their life. There were also more priests in the parishes, so that the witness, the example was there of priesthood. Also, if there was 12 kids in a farming family, the oldest kid is going to take over the farm. There wasn't a lot of kind of options on the table. You couldn't just go to college wherever you wanted. It was hard to do that. It was a lot more provincial, and I think the idea of priesthood seemed more real, tangible. You know, I know four priests in my parish, I experienced their ministry, I experienced um this invitation from the sisters in my school to consider this life. So I think that's why we we see in a certain time, there's a lot maybe more vocations, right? We also see a huge boom that happened right after both world wars. Right? Guys come back from World War I. I think what happened was just that there was a recognition of life and death matter. It's real. We saw it, we see it. We we we have friends who we lost, and and there's a response of there's a response to God in ministry. So we see both of those, there were big booms in the seminaries right after both of those times of war. But then both both sides, they kind of it kind of waned out over time, right? And when we lost a lot of religious sisters from our parishes, that kind of waned over time. So I just I point that out as an example from the past because that's where we came from. That's like the we stand on the shoulders of giants in some ways, of the sisters and the pastors who who built and formed these communities. What I see today, though, is interesting. There's a parish in Cleveland. I got to visit there one time, it's called St. Mary's in a suburb of Cleveland. I went to a guy's first mass, and there were like 10 priests concebrating at that mass. Those were only priests who were also from that parish. So they've had just like, I think, 12 ordinations in like 15 years or something like that from this parish. There's a big article that they wrote about it. And the fraternity I saw, the brotherhood I saw these guys share, was unmatched. I I've never seen anything like that before. So something's happened in the parish. I know they have a really like strong, you know, youth group life team presence. I know they have a a lot of other things happening in that parish. But I think there's a culture that can develop in parishes that starts to promote more and more and more. So now, locally in our diocese, what I've seen recently is what I've wanted to see, not a pipeline insofar as guys feel any kind of pressure. But if I know that a guy from my high school that I went to high school with is in seminary, it's a lot easier to say yes to that. It's a lot easier for that to seem real, a real possibility. I know what that looks like. I say, hey, I know that guy. I was in school with him. I saw that process of discernment he was on. Maybe I went on some trips with the seminarians, and that seems like a life that's possible for me. So if you if you look at our vocations poster now, we have a few guys who are from the same high schools. And when I was working with them for application, they felt so much more free to discern because they knew the guys. It didn't seem like this thing that was a world away. It was like, all right, that's possible.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, I know that that's Joe. He lives down the street from you.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Yeah, absolutely. Um I don't know. That's a smattering of just kind of experiences that I've that I've had. But I'll just go back to this. It's like, like you said at the beginning, places where faith is happening, places where discipleship and real formation in the Christian life is happening, that's the context where vocation discernment happens. I'll say that, but at the exact same time, I can look at myself and other number of my other brothers, and we came from seemingly random parish communities. We came from very different experiences of formation, either Catholic or public school, the different family dynamics we lived through, guys who went to college, guys who went to seminary right out of high school, like I did. And so in some ways it's like, oh, God's out there, He's working, He's working in the hearts of our young people. And I think in some ways, what is forming eyes and ears to be open to how God's already working. Sometimes God can work through a situation where, and I could, you know, I could share in my own life, there was a lot of things going against me for my own discernment. I had parents who divorced, my Catholic grade school closed when I was in high school. I struggled with the same things that high school kids struggle with. I was in a really small, isolated rural community. I would go to my friend's Baptist youth group because we didn't have any kind of youth group, and somehow all those pieces came together and I discerned the priesthood. Now, as vocation director, I'd look at that situation and think, like, man, I don't know if I would have had a shot. So God can still work in those situations, but the more that we can create a culture where young people have the eyes and ears of their interior life open to God, so much easier can they hear the call that He's giving.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Yeah, I hear you know, one of the things I hear you saying, and that there's two pieces. One is when there was a big boom in the priesthood, and our our numbers have dwittled, um, particularly in our diocese, we have like 25?

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Thirty so we have thirty-six. Thirty six. Thirty-six active priests, and I think maybe like thirty-seven or thirty-eight parishes still. There's some that have emerged. And I'll just share this briefly because people see this today. Uh not to just this is a helpful context, I think. In the past couple years, we've obviously had priests who are members of the baby boomer generation retire, and that's a larger group of priests who've retired year after year after year. So what people are looking at today, they're like, well, we have a vocation crisis today. What I'll often point out, and I don't point fingers when I say this, we don't really have a vocation crisis today. So we have a decent amount of seminarians for the population of a diocese that we have. And compared to, and this isn't a comparison game, compared to other large metropolitan cities, New York, Chicago, LA, their their replacement rate would be vastly larger than ours, you know. So the fact that we have nine, ten, twelve seminarians over the years, that's we want more, we need more, but that's that's actually doing really well today. The real vocations crisis happened about thirty years ago when we didn't really ordain a lot of guys through the late 80s and 90s to the early 2000s. That's the gap that we're feeling right now. Where the guys who are retiring, especially in our diocese, are retiring from being like pastors of large, you know, regional county parishes at 70 years old, some guys who are staying on three or four years, being very, very generous with their time. But that next generation of guys doesn't have the same quantity of men to step up in that spot. So I think that's why we're feeling that rub, especially these days.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yeah. Well, and uh, you know, to your point of, you know, fostering vocations, that that culture of vocations, whereas, you know, back in the day they would have maybe had four priests that they knew. One of the components of that is if you've got four priests at your parish carrying the burden of the priesthood in that parish, the sacramental life and stuff, it's a lot easier to make a joyful witness, you know, versus one person, you know, instead of four priests at one parish, you now have one priest that runs seven churches. And it's a different animal, and it's a lot it's a it's a bigger challenge to show a joyful priesthood when you're drained and exhausted, and it's a bigger weight. What that means is the laity need to step up, and I would assume that's a part of the culture is you have priests who have allowed the laity to enter into that vocational challenge, that well, not even vocational challenge, but that universal call to holiness, where that is being lived out. And so again, you build up the laity around you, you know, that you're they're able to enter more fruitfully into that dialogue with the pastor, with the church, with the people with the people in the parish, so that where it once was the priests, the sisters, you know, in that community, well, now it's you know, Grandma Ethel and her commitment to the rosary, and she's there at the rosary every weekend before mass and probably going to daily mass, that's that witness. But like you said, getting the eyes and ears of our youth open so that they can discern intentionally. What are some healthy pieces of that culture then, so then moms and dads, the lady in the pews can come around the pastor and help create a healthy vocation culture in more parishes.

SPEAKER_01 15:18

Right. I mean, I think the obvious thing, and I look back to my own parents and I'm so grateful for this. Even though I experienced these difficult moments of suffering in my life as a as a young person, we went to mass every single Sunday. Without exception, we went to Mass. And I know for some people listening, like that just seems, yeah, of course, of course we go to Mass. But post-COVID, that's not the case. The amount of young people I talk to who because their parents don't go to mass or because they s they struggle in a spot where my folks don't go to mass and I'm trying to go to my own if I have a car or I'm too young and my my parents don't go, so often I'll be like, Did you go before COVID? Oh yeah, we went every single week. It's been difficult, right? And when we when we said as a church, yeah, you don't have to go to Mass for three months and then please come back to Mass, you know. I've spent most of my priesthood inviting people back to the sacraments of Sunday Eucharist and confession. So both of those things, I would say the consistency of weekly Sunday Mass, and then also just a life of the sacraments, right? So that we're we're going to confession and and you know, children actually seeing their parents humbly go before God and confess their sins, right? Obviously not in the confessional. That happens sometimes when a parent brings a toddler in and you hear them on the other side of the screen, you're like, what? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

But living the sacramental is dangerous because a toddler will repeat anything they hear. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 16:37

I once uh we were doing a thing at a one of our beautiful churches in our diocese and had the old school confessions on the side with big curtains. Well, one of the kids who went in the confessional was used to confession rooms that have doors. And uh, you know, let's just say he confessed like volume at like 11, and his sister heard him. And when he came out, this is a younger sister, his sister goes, You forgot this and this and this and this and this, and just called him out like that. Um, but I think families that live a sacramental life, that's the seed bed for every vocation. But the next piece too is that it's normal for priests to be involved in the life of the family, right? So that and I and I know people that think, oh, my house is never clean enough or this or that, or maybe a pastor isn't as um maybe willing or open to do this. But what I've enjoyed so much is getting invited over to families' houses and being involved in the life of the family. So it might be from at a baptism party, coming to hang out after after baptism. It might be just on a random summer barbecue and there's other families getting together. It might just be a a simple evening supper that I get invited over to. That context then, all of a sudden, then when I'm at the funeral of a loved one of that same family, all of a sudden there's this deeper connection. And that's the joy of the priesthood is getting to be present in life of the family of the parish, but a particular family through these high moments, these low moments, these simple, normal, ordinary moments. And I've noticed that I've talked to guys who've been in seminary, and some some guys who come from really solid, wonderful families, they just talk about like, oh yeah, priests were always over. It was a supernormal experience. We knew that the priest was our like our pastor. He was also a friend. He, you know, he he kind of fulfilled these different roles in the life of the family. But I mean, how do we how does any kid get in interested in any kind of vocation or career? Well, they experience it lived out, you know. They experience it in their daily life. So it's difficult when a priest is stretched and he doesn't feel like he can be as present of life of of families and parishes. But if the only time that a a young person is interacting with their priest is just on Sunday Mass, it's hard to see that that's a life that's able to be lived. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Well, and they're not really interacting with the priest. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

When I was growing up, and I won't put pointing fingers, but it's like I saw my priest and a very small communities. I saw my priest at Sunday Mass, and I was we were very involved. I mowed the cemetery, and so I had a little bit more exposure, but I had no idea what my priest did besides Sunday, you know, and I think a lot of people think that, you know. Or as uh one of my buddies, uh priest buddies says, kind of like on Lord of the Rings when they just like dig up orcs from the ground, kind of the idea that like priests just sort of fall down from the sky as like 65-year-old men, you know, when we've never seen a young priest, you know, it's like no, every guy has a vocation story, every guy has an experience of hearing his call, being formed here, desiring to come back and serve the diocese. So yeah, what what offers a kind of the seed bed for those eyes and ears to be opened is a culture of faith, a rich life of the sacraments, a life lived in the church, a life lived with, you know, and and and bumping up against the life of the priest, the life of the parish. I think that's just the first step. I think that's the obvious first step. The second thing that this is you mentioned at the beginning is an uncomfortable conversation, conversations not often had, is that everybody wants somebody else's son or grandson to be a priest. Very few people are open to the risk of having their own son, their own grandson be a priest. Because of priestly celibacy, right? The idea that, well, that might be a sacrifice for me. I might not get the grandkids that I want. I might not get my, you know, my son to stay close or whatever. You know, uh there I see there's a hesitancy in a lot of families to actually invite their own children, their own grandchildren to consider that life.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

See, I'm completely selfish in that because I want both my pre kids to be prepared. My dad I need them to pray me into heaven. I was gonna say I'll take everything.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

My dad might have said things in the past like, I got a son as a priest, I got an automatic ticket. I don't think that's how it works, John. No, it is. No, I checked, I looked it up. Um No, it's true, and I think that's there's some people who really do desire that, right? And that's where we need to allow our young men to be free. I'll say this you know, this happened in the life of the church. I think a certain generation of guys felt a certain level of pressure. You know, there was that encouragement from religious sisters, but I think there was almost a little bit of a cultural pressure of like, some priests come out of this family, you know, what else, what else am I going to do, kind of thing. So I think that the next generation where we see a lack of vocations, there was an emphasis on the freedom for guys and no pressure, right? So there's a generation where it's like even the ideas of having uh a seminarian poster, knowing the guys who are in seminary, some guys don't like that because they think it's a a really pressured experience of now you're almost like a Catholic celebrity in the diocese, and that does happen, right? People do treat you a little special sometimes. But I think it's important to see that there are young men from our schools, from our communities, from our parishes who have responded, who are asking these questions. And that gives us a witness that I could do that too. It's possible for me to do that.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

I want to zoom in on something you did say that I I don't want it to get missed while we're having this conversation. You said after COVID, one like one of the big pieces of your evangelization for for all the people is to invite them back to the sacraments, particularly communion, right? The Eucharist and the reconciliation. And I think that that's important because what I keep Coming back to as I wrestle with this, like how do we foster more vocations? What I keep coming back to is that the family in the pews need to live out that Jesus changes everything. And what happens in a lot of parishes that I've been a member of that I've visited is that the pastor gives a nice homily, but he never preaches repentance.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Or conversion.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Conversion. That's what it is, right? Right. Repentance, people don't like that word. Repentance is conversion. It's a radical reorientation of yourself. And that's in the big things and the little things. The thing that changed for my life was when Jesus became concrete enough that I realized it had to change everything. I had to change. And that still informs the way I interact with my my spouse, my wife, my kids. It it changed who I hung out with. Our kids need to see that our life is not organized around our convenience, it's organized around our desire to get to heaven. And so we have cultivated specific friendships that are going to help them to do that. Because you you catechize your kids by how you live your life. So if your life is not transformed by the weight of the gospel, the power of the name of Jesus Christ, they're going to intuit that and recognize that it's actually not that important. On the other hand, if they see that you go to confession so that you can receive Jesus worthily, that's a comp no how many kids can articulate that that's a reality in their parents' lives. If you live that, not in a vainglorious way to, you know, heap up your good treasures and your good works, but no, I'm a sinner. I need Jesus. That's why we do these things.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

And then it produces the fruit of joy, right? I don't know if you heard this yet. This is this is kind of awesome. It was cool. I just heard it from a um Dr. Swafford from Benedictin, who was speaking to our clergy, but then I actually just heard the podcast, mistakenly myself, on our recent Joe Rogan podcast, he's talking to Andrew Wilson, this is podcast, whatever. Joe Rogan, who's been like kind of outwardly atheist for a long time, who's beat down and questioned Christianity, he just said this about a couple months ago when he actually published this show, he's talking about it. He said, if there was a pill to make you as happy as the people I go to church with, he goes, Everybody would take that pill. And he just highlights the teaching of Jesus and how much it clearly has changed these people's lives. He goes, They're the happiest people I've ever been in my life. And so he's just like giving a like a weird testimony to Christian joy that something is different here. You know, there's that everybody knows the song. They'll know we're Christians because of our love, and hopefully that's the case. They'll also know we're Christians because of our joy. When I was uh in high school, I was invited to this event. There was a bunch of priests there. I'd never seen more than like two priests in the same room coming from a small town. But what I'd never experienced too was a personal testimony of joy. So the vocation director at the time asked all the priests in the room to share one joy of their life of priests, one joy of the priesthood. The young guys did they were told, my joy of the priesthood's this, this, this, hearing confession, celebrating sacraments, all this stuff. The old guys, the retired priests, they do whatever they want. They just started telling their whole life stories. I was baptized in 1932, I did this. What struck me, and it really did hit me, and I think that's what kind of did open my eyes in a certain sense to the possibility of God calling me to be a priest. They couldn't articulate one joy because their lives had been filled with this joy of serving others. And I think they just sometimes like to hear themselves talk a little bit, you know, blow off some some steam, which is good. Uh, but it was so inspiring for me. I wish I remembered which Monsignor was, but he's since passed away. He was he was talking about his life, and he gets to that moment of his ordination, and he said he was talking about promising obedience to his bishop and all of his successors that he'd have. He was so passionate, he was like banging on the table, banging his fist on the table, like, I promised obedience to serve this diocese when I was, you know, a young man, and I've done that. And it's produced this joy. And and that that meant something for me. That was impactful for me to say, this man is living a way that I want to live. And that's what Jesus did, that's what attracted the apostles, but that's what attracted the next generation of disciples. What else would attract them besides they're living very differently in a culture that is living a very different way? They're living with a tangible, palpable joy. So I think that's really important too. When I run around so much, I've found that I've often said this line to young people I said, if if you don't hear anything that I say today, please hear that a life lived in relationship with Jesus and his church is better than a life lived without him. And I've said, You're gonna have to make that judgment the rest of your life if that's true. But that's why I'm here today. Like that's why I drove across the diocese. That's why I'm here at this confirmation treat, this youth event, this whatever. A life lived in relationship with Jesus is better. And I found this to be the case. You're gonna have to make that judgment yourself, you know. But can that be a joyful witness that I offer as a priest, that parish priests offer themselves in their preaching, in their ministry, that Jesus is changing them, that he matters, that everything changes when uh a relationship with Jesus is the most central point of my life, you know?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, well, and that's that's been at the root of I think that that that's at the root of human flourishing is to find joy in what it is that you're doing. You know, and that's so much easier when there is a real meaning behind to your life. So this priest who's who's given himself to this obedience, to this act of service. I w I was it's it's doom scrolling on on Instagram. But I came across this one I came across this one post, and it was kind of it was I think it was intended to be funny, but it was like bedtime stories for men. Huh. You know how people listen to those who are like it's just this low-key voice, and this guy, and I'm never gonna remember him, won't be able to give him a shout out, but he's like the it's four men, and so the first line is you're lying in the snow, slowly bleeding out. You fought the fought fight, your family and your children escaped. They're safe. After that, you're laying your your best friend walks up to you and he lights a fire, and he opens a cold beer. It's just like But the whole point is like you have given yourself your life as a sacrifice. Like, that is the bedtime story that we want to be able to tell ourselves at the end of the day. I spent today, like I poured myself out as a libation, and then you do that every day until someday you're at the end of your life, and you can look back and say, I lived this well, I poured myself out, I was the sacrifice, right? I entered into that fully, and it's there's no fuller expression of it than to apply it and to see it as Christ's sacrifice lived through you, right? You're entering into his sacrifice, and there's no fuller way to live that than in the Christian faith. Like no other faith offers you that in the same way. So, yeah, like what you're saying is absolutely true to try and find that, to live that well in our own lives so that we can articulate it to our kids.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

And the articulation, that's what I want to mention just briefly. My mom tells this awesome story. So, my grandpa, I never got to meet him, he passed away from cancer before I was born. My grandpa was this very faithful Catholic man. My mom shows, she said, My dad showed me the faith. And the perfect story of that was when apparently in a blizzard, in an active blizzard, he walked with his three kids. Grandma was a Lutheran, so she stayed home. He walked with his three kids through the blizzard, like probably like six blocks to the church. They show up, the priest is in his house, active blizzard. He's like, What are you doing here? My grandpa's like, I'm here for Sunday Mass. So they had mass in the sacristy of the church with the guy who lived next door, the priest, and my my mom are two brothers, and my grandpa, because he's like, We go to Mass on Sundays, even walking through a blizzard. But my mom said, He showed me his faith. He showed me that this this is a life of self-sacrifice, but he never really talked about it, you know. And it makes sense culturally, it makes sense generationally, because for my grandpa's generation, the culture was still pretty Christian. So you could just live your faith, and the culture was kind of building that up. But as the next generations would go on, there wasn't that articulation of why, why I believe this, why I'm giving my life for this, why I just walk to the active blizzard to go to mass, you know. So I think it's Paul VI who says, Saint Paul VI who says in Evangeli Nunciani, he says, uh modern man listens to witness testimony before they listen to teachers, and only they're only going to listen to teachers if that teacher is also giving a testimony, a witness of their own life, you know. So I think we we think it all the time, you know, with that fake for St. Francis quote of preach the gospel at all times, use words when necessary. It's like, you know, that's a nice sentiment, and it's true. We need to live it and not just preach kind of empty words. But I think, especially today, and especially in families, to be able to articulate and actually give a testimony of why this matters, right? We show that testimony by living a sacramental life, by praying, like you just said, by living a life that's kind of with the type of friends that's centered around Christ in such a way that this isn't just sprinkles on the side. This is everything for us. But when the moment's right, when according to you know children's kind of development and where they're at, to be able to share with them why, you know. I've loved to watch some of my friends in my generation, like when they're having little ones and when they're taking them to mass, and even when they're little and they're one or two, and they're pointing out every time a mass during the elevation, that's Jesus. That's Jesus. Like that's such a beautiful articulation of the faith. I'm not just bringing my kid to Mass, but in the midst of Mass, I'm actually pointing to Jesus. But then sometimes I think it tapers off. We don't know how to articulate the faith beyond pointing to the that's Jesus, right? That's a challenge, but that's such an adventure too, to be able to accompany a young person as that, you know, I'm picking up and accompanying young people when they're in high school and college and they're they're kind of those really important formative years. But even before that, that this young person knows, like, why does every young boy want to be a firefighter and a police officer? Because that looks awesome. Or Father Zach Jones, my buddy, said he wanted to be a garbage man because you got to ride on the back of a truck. That's awesome. I love that. Yeah, he just he said, I want to be a, I want to be a that was the coolest job. This guy rode on the back of a truck and threw bags and you know, crushed stuff up, you know. But they want to do these things because they are exciting. There is an adventure, there's an element of sack self-sacrifice there. But to be able to articulate, so I would say as a priest, I want to continue to articulate and offer a testimony of how Jesus is changing my life and not just what he should be doing in other people's lives, but how he's meeting me, that takes a risk. That's humble to do that. It's not always easy. I think sometimes as priests, we don't want to self-aggrandize ourselves. So we often don't want to preach about ourselves. But it's so important, fathers, it's so important to actually give a witness to your parish of why you love being a priest, right? And to show it too, through a joyful witness. Just like it is important for a father of a family to give a joyful witness of his life as a Christian, that he's not just like mad and pissed off every time he has to go to mass in the morning, right? That this is actually a joyful experience. So to the life of the priest, even though he's busy, even though he's giving himself and pouring himself out, that it is this life of kenosis, this outpouring that does bear the fruit of joy.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

So that I want to lean into that here with this next question before we kind of land the plane then. So what for the pastor or the parish leader that's listening right now, then what do you think what's the move, you know, not not five years from now when things line up perfectly, not this month. Where where do they start? How do they do that?

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah. I'll talk to priests. I'll talk to priests first. There's never an opportunity where you can't share your vocation story, right? I guess it kind of said that in a weird way. There's always opportunities to share again and again how God called you and has been calling you. I'm often invited to do that because I'm the vocation guy. So when I go speak at schools, they want to hear the story. Oh, the old gals, father, when did you know you were called? You know? And they want to hear that story. And what's been beautiful for me is the more I've I was at a buddy school one time in grade school, and we got my vocation story down to like a minute and a half, and I was like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, rocking off the little details. But as I've told my vocation story, what I've recognized is how I got to seminary isn't that exciting for me anymore to even tell because I was such a blip. Then I was in seminary for nine years and all the growth and everything that's happened. Now I've been a priest for almost six years. So it's like that's all part of this vocation story. I'm offering this story of how God met me, right? There's an easy in with priests because people want to know the story of how'd you become a priest? So few people do. How'd you decide to do that? Where'd that call come from? And I've noticed that when guys haven't shared that story consistently, the older they get, it's harder to even remember that. They'll just be like, um, I was taught about it and uh then I did it. And it's like, well, that's fine, you know. Dad, how'd you meet mom? Why'd you want to marry mom? It's like, I think, I think husbands and wives, they that's a cool story to hear, right? But then as people stop asking, it's like we knew each other, but to be able to share and give a testimony to, yeah, what was that like when I was a young person and God met me? So, like, priests, fathers, pastors, there's always an opportunity to share your vocation story, right? There's opportunity in the gospels. When the gospels come up of Jesus calling the apostles, share your vocation story. Like that, that's always a possibility. That's something that can happen tomorrow. When you get the opportunity to go into the grade school and go to uh talk to high schoolers or whatever, don't be afraid to just share your own story, share your own witness. I think that's the first thing. Uh uh that's what parents can do at home, but that's what priests can do tomorrow. Just share your vocation story, you know. But then I think the biggest question is always to ask where are there opportunities for formation in discipleship in our parish? Are we forming people to pray or forming people to know Jesus? So to look at the parish, it's like, what's actually happening? If something's not happening, let's put some energy in that direction. That might take some planning. That might not be a tomorrow, right? But then I think that's in a parish, a parish is made up of families. Families, talk to your sons, talk to your grandsons. Just like, have you ever thought about being a priest before? Like, that's as easy as it is, you know. I remember I was really encouraged to do this, and there was a lot of discussion about priests inviting young men to be priests is the most successful method of like lost all these priests. Yeah, right. But you look at all these statistics, and it's like most guys were invited at some point or another by a priest to consider this life, you know. And it doesn't have to be overbearing. It ought not to just be like a little joke thing you say to every single kid in the sacristy, you'd make a good priest, Johnny. Right.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

I got that all the time growing up. It scared the hell out of me.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Yeah, yeah. And so part of it though is like, that's okay. That's not a bad thing. You serve mass if you thought about being a priest. But I I did it once. I did it once when I was at the high school here in town, and it was it was risky for me, it was uncomfortable. You know, I I asked this this this guy that I knew well to come to the office, and I just said it, I said, Hey, I just want you to know, I see these different kinds of gifts coming alive in you. And I'm not trying to put any pressure on you, but I just think you might be helpful to be open to a call to the priesthood, you know. Or priests in our diocese, or many other dioceses, when the vocations office is offering these different events, we do this quest trip in the summer where we go on this pilgrimage together with like 45 guys. We bring our seminarians, it's this low-key discernment experience. It's really an opportunity just for young men to get together and experience masculine fraternity and holiness and all this stuff. But then it's like they just get to interact with the seminarians. Or then in August, we actually have a real discernment retreat. Actually invite guys to that. Just putting a flyer up on the bulletin board's fine. A young man's not going to see that, right? But a personal invitation of saying, hey, have you thought about this before? Have you thought about going to something like this before? That personal invitation is so important to just consider it. And then there's all the levels of, you know, formation and building that up, that uh building that individual man up and building the culture vocations up. But I think those are the places that we can start.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

I here's as you were talking, the thing that popped into my head. I had the most success when I was working in a Catholic high school with getting guys to consider a vocation to the priesthood by taking them on seminary visits. So I think, like our low barrier, if you're just looking to try something new and see what it does, invite the seminarians to come to your parish and throw a rager. Just get them out there, say, hey, we want you to come out for like four hours. We've got a blank check. We want you to think about what would be a fun party to throw at a parish. Um, hang out. Don't don't like it like this super boring, like you're gonna sit in a room and ask the panel of seminarians. Yeah. Like have them hang out, have a blast, really like invite every guy in your parish to come to it. From there, then say, hey, we're gonna be having a seminary visit on X date. If you had fun with these guys, come see what they what it looks like to live with them.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

And I'll just share this very practically for my own life. I'm really glad that I have the opportunity to do those things. I'm yeah, you know, a recent blizzard just canceled a seminary visit I was gonna bring three guys on, right? But I'll I'll share this and I'll give them a shout-out. But Father Zach, he lives close enough in Algona, they live close enough to the seminary in Winona that they live two and a half hours away. So it's like they can easily take their own vocations trip. They've taken an unrun and they've gone up to New Home because they live close enough to that stuff. We've talked about this, and I've talked about this another a lot of my priest friends. It's like anybody can take a trip to the seminary. It doesn't just have to be from the vocations office. I'll even pay for it too, Father. Like, I'll help you out. I, you know, we we have we have funds for this, but I'm one guy and we got a big diocese, you know. There's a lot of ground to cover, and there's a lot of places and a lot of parishes, a lot of people. I'm not the sole director of vocations, right? It's my unique opportunity to accompany men who are stepping up and saying, Yeah, I'm I'm discerning this, I'm thinking about this. That's a really beautiful place that I got to be. My hope is that they've already been accompanied by their families, by their pastors, by their friends in this process of discernment that I'm kind of coming alongside that and and kind of picking up where they've kind of left off. And there's a there's a nice handoff, there's a nice tag team experience that happens there. A lot of times a guy will even be open to the seminary, might even talk to his pastor, and the pastor calls me right away and says, Talk to this guy. Father, have you talked to the guy? You know the guy. You know the guy. He's your guy. You don't want to have that relationship. He's your guy, right, right. Have you talked to the guy? You know, or or I've had a grandma before say, you know, something's going on with my grandson. You should really invite him to something. I'm like, assume to cold call your grandson and say that, hello, I've never met you before, but your grandma just called me and said that. But it's like, don't be afraid to have that actual conversation with another person, you know? Don't be afraid to have the conversation, pastor to parishioner, mother to son, father to son, you know, uncle to nephew. Those are the conversations that's where that actually opens up and sparks those ideas, but opens eyes and hearts to the possibility.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Absolutely. Well, I think we've got to kind of land this plane, but is there a story, a scripture, something that captures why this work really matters to you, or that what's God doing in your heart right now in your ministry in vocations?

SPEAKER_01 41:23

Aaron Powell I'll just share this. This goes back a number of years. Uh, I had the opportunity to do a 30-day sound retreat basically halfway through seminary, and very beautiful ignition prayer. At the very end of the retreat, my director said, Hey, you know, it's the very last day, last time I'm praying. I've been praying, you know, multiple holy hours throughout the days, all this stuff. And my director said, You know, sometimes guys, uh, people at the end of these retreats will ask the Lord for a name. I looked at him and like, what are you talking about? I don't know what you mean. And he's like, you know, like Paul got a new name, Peter gets a new name, these different uh kind of a name with a name comes a vocation with that. And I kind of looked at him, he goes, just see what happens, right? I'm wildly open to God. I've been you know praying this whole month-long retreat. And so I just go to the chapel almost with a smirk, like, I don't even know what I'm doing right now. You got a name for me, Lord? And what was wild was the the scripture verse that came, uh it had not come up on the retreat at all. It wasn't something that I think about all the time, but it was so clear, boom. It was that scripture from Luke, of course, I don't know what verse it is, but chapter and verse, where Jesus looks at Peter and he says, Peter, Satan will sift you like wheat, but I'll strengthen you that you can go back and strengthen the brothers, right? And and that happened when I was halfway through seminary, right? And I have a deep desire for a priestly fraternity. I have a a deep desire to see other young men come alongside and live this life. I mean, it's a joyful life. I want other guys to share this, right? And I want to share it with brothers. But I've seen that lived out, right? I've seen that the Satan will sift you like wheat, I've seen the division that happens, I've seen young people struggle with sin. I've seen Satan sifting like wheat, right? But I've also seen the strength of the brotherhood of the priesthood that comes together. I've seen the strength of good, beautiful families that come together, and I've seen the Lord doing that strengthening in and through me over these years. That I received that grace at a time when I had no idea I'd be doing this work eight years later. But I I've been privileged to do this, do this work. You know, I I miss parish life, I miss the life of knowing families and a community and kind of having a home base. But to be able to allow the whole diocese to become this home and to experience that mutual strengthening with my own brothers and with these young guys. And I'll and I'll tell you lastly, Bishop Keener, you know, as he's gotten to know the guys, our new bishop, he's uh he's he said this. I've had other people say this. We have just really, really good men who are in seminary. The numbers might not look huge, but the quality of these guys and the level of their openness and discernment and the level of their interior life is so inspiring for me as a as a priest to see these young guys where I was just a few years ago, just risking themselves for the gospel. Growing in maturity, growing in integrity, doing the hard thing, having you know deep conversations with one another, growing in deep, uh intimate prayer with God, that is like a a strengthening for me that I can go and strengthen not only my brother Priest, but strengthen uh the young men that I get to work with and encourage them that this life is worth living, as Fulton Sheen would say.

SPEAKER_00 44:21

Amen, amen. All right, is there any way you you would like to invite people to go to connect with you, learn more about the diocese of Sioux City and what they're doing around vocations?

SPEAKER_01 44:30

We have a vocations website called uh Sioux City Priest.org. It's kind of nice. Our communications office keeps it up. There's like profiles of each of our seminarians. There's also like a page that shows our seminaries. And then there's also kind of a nice like little, almost like a social media news feed that shows us different things that are happening. Like Anthony Vera from Lamaris, he he he just was instituted as a lector a couple weeks ago in Rome. So stuff like that. Or like when Deacon Tommy's ordination happened in Rome and we went out to see that, or you see what the guys are doing in Winona, what the guys are doing in uh at Kenrick in St. Louis. So SiouxityPreest.org is is a nice little hub to kind of just see some of those happenings. And I'll just mention those two events that are coming up this summer. Our quest trip that's open to guys who are after uh their freshman year of high school through college age years. We're going on a pilgrimage to see the tombs in the hometowns of Father Emile Capin in Wichita, and then Blessed Stanley Rother in Oklahoma City. That's the first week of June for four days. And then our discernment retreat called Quovatis, while we chose two key words. I have no idea for both of our retreats in the summer, but Quavatis is this summer, and it'll be in Okaboji the first weekend of August.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

So branding.

SPEAKER_01 45:35

Weird keywords that we we mix up every single time.

SPEAKER_00 45:38

All right, so visit uh Sue Citypriest.org. That's right. All right, fantastic. Uh before we wrap, I do want to say that everything that Father Travis shared today, these are things that pastors want, right? The desire to build vocation culture, to serve our families better, to lead real change in the parish. It's it's there. The honest struggle for us is time. Uh most pastors are already carrying a full load, and this kind of pastoring requires it requires room to think, room to pray, space. You can't lead what you don't have room for. And so the first step usually isn't a new program. So that's not what we're talking about today. It's knowing where your time is going. And we at Catholic Ministry Professionals, we did build a free time audit tool that you can get at Catholic Ministry Professionals.com slash time audit. And it's for exactly that reason so that you can see where your hours are going, so that you can make decisions that get the outcomes that we want that help us to strive after these things, these desires that God has put in our hearts. So you can visit Catholic Ministry Professionals.com, check out the time audit tool, see where your time is going, and get some tips to help you really reclaim your time for discipleship. And with that, I want to say thank you for listening to this episode. If you found it helpful, don't let it be just another good idea. Text it to a priest or a friend in ministry that could benefit from it. And with that, we'll see you in the vineyard. The Catholic Ministry Professionals podcast is brought to you by Briar Cliff University. Briar Cliff provides a vibrant community, top notch faculty, and cutting edge programs that empower you to reach your full potential. So whether you're pursuing a degree in business, healthcare, or the arts, Briar Cliff provides an environment where you can thrive. Learn more at Briarcliff.edu to start your transformative academic experience.