New Vocations for a New Europe, Final Document of the Congress on Vocations to the Priesthood and to Consecrated Life in Europe, 11 June 1998

Filled with the same hope we address you parents, called by God to collaborate with His will in giving life, and you educators, teachers, catechists and promoters, called by God to collaborate in different ways in His plan of formation for life. We wish to tell you how much the Church appreciates your vocation, and how much it relies on your vocation to promote the vocations of your children and a real and proper vocational culture.

You parents are also the first natural vocational educators, while you formators are not only instructors who introduce people to the essential choices: you are also called to generate life in these young people whom you will open up to the future. Your fidelity to God's call is the precious and irreplaceable means by which your children and pupils might discover their own personal vocation, so that "they may have life, and have it abundantly".
(Jn 10, 10)

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Pope Pius XII, 25 March 1942

"God has blessed your marriage and given you children.. If the Divine Master comes and asks for "His part"-one of your children, whom He has called to be a priest, a religious or a nun-what will you do? What will become of the holy inspirations that have spoken to their hearts, and His voice whispering to them: "Do you love Me? Will you follow Me?" In God's name I beg you not to stifle in their souls their openness to the Divine Call. .How deep will your Christian spirit really be if you back away from the honor of cooperating and helping in the work of spreading the Faith and the Catholic Church not merely with material help but also with the very precious gift of your children that God is asking of you?

Dear married couples, help the Church, the Spouse of Christ; help Christ, the Savior of men, with the fruit of your marriage. Give God the portion of your blessing He is asking for out of your home.

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The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, Pontifical Council for the Family, 8 December 1995

2. The Vocation to Virginity and Celibacy
34. Christian revelation presents the two vocations to love: marriage and virginity. In some societies today, not only marriage and the family, but also vocations to the priesthood and the religious life, are often in a state of crisis. The two situations are inseparable: "When marriage is not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when human sexuality is not regarded as a great value given by the Creator, the renunciation of it for the sake of the kingdom of heaven loses its meaning". A lack of vocations follows from the breakdown of the family, yet where parents are generous in welcoming life, children will be more likely to be generous when it comes to the question of offering themselves to God: "Families must once again express a generous love for life and place themselves at its service above all by accepting the children which the Lord wants to give them with a sense of responsibility not detached from peaceful trust", and they may bring this acceptance to fulfilment not only "through a continuing educational effort but also through an obligatory commitment, at times perhaps neglected, to help teenagers especially and young people to accept the vocational dimension of every living being, within God's plan... Human life acquires fullness when it becomes a self-gift: a gift which can express itself in matrimony, in consecrated virginity, in self-dedication to one's neighbour towards an ideal, or in the choice of priestly ministry. Parents will truly serve the life of their children if they help them make their own lives a gift, respecting their mature choices and fostering joyfully each vocation, including the religious and priestly one".

When he deals with sexual education in Familiaris Consortio, this is why Pope John Paul II affirms: "Indeed Christian parents, discerning the signs of God's call, will devote special attention and care to education in virginity or celibacy as the supreme form of that self-giving that constitutes the very meaning of human sexuality".

Parents and Priestly or Religious Vocations
35. Parents should therefore rejoice if they see in any of their children the signs of God's call to the higher vocation of virginity or celibacy for the love of the Kingdom of Heaven. They should accordingly adapt formation for chaste love to the needs of those children, encouraging them on their own path up to the time of entering the seminary or house of formation, or until this specific call to self-giving with an undivided heart matures. They must respect and appreciate the freedom of each of their children, encouraging their personal vocation and without trying to impose a predetermined vocation on them.

The Second Vatican Council clearly set out this distinct and honourable task of parents, who are supported in their work by teachers and priests: "Parents should nurture and protect religious vocations in their children by educating them in Christian virtues". "The duty of fostering vocations falls on the whole Christian community....The greatest contribution is made by families which are animated by a spirit of faith, charity and piety and which provide, as it were, a first seminary, and by parishes in whose abundant life the young people themselves take an active part". "Parents, teachers and all who are in any way concerned in the education of boys and young men ought to train them in such a way that they will know the solicitude of the Lord for his flock and be alive to the needs of the Church. In this way they will be prepared when the Lord calls to answer generously with the prophet: ?Here am I! send me' (Isaiah 6:8)".

This necessary family context for maturing religious and priestly vocations brings to mind the serious situation of many families, especially in certain countries, families with an impoverished life because they have chosen to deprive themselves of children or where they have only one child, a situation in which it is very difficult for vocations to arise and even difficult to develop a full social education.

36. The truly Christian family will also be able to communicate an understanding of the value of celibacy to unmarried children or those who are incapable of marriage for reasons apart from their own will. If they are formed well from childhood and during their youth, they will be equipped to face their own situation more easily. Likewise, they will be able to discover the will of God in such a situation and so find a sense of vocation and peace in their own lives. These persons, especially if they have some kind of physical disability, need to be shown the great possibilities for self-realization and spiritual fruitfulness which are open to those who make a commitment to help their poorest and most needy brothers and sisters, sustained by faith and the love of God.