Why do people become priests or nuns?

Rating: Null/10 (7 June 2015)

One thing the fictional, based on reality, film does quite well is answer why people become priests. The answer is often the same for nuns. Although many today believe that anyone, no matter how poor, can become president or a doctor, there are still many others who think it isn't realistic to do that in one generation. For them the church offers much more interesting and rewarding jobs than the secular world. They don't become forceful, but they do become respected and consulted. As a project for a journalism class several people who had become priests or nuns were interviewed in order to find out why they did that. None gave the expected answer that they were called by the Holy Spirit. They were just poor people whose best opportunity for interesting work was offered them by the church. If in history rich families often considered it a blessing to give one child over to such work, that was not seen in the recent limited survey. Although none mentioned witnessing spiritual phenomena, it is often the case that people who have witnessed it avoid public discussion of it since it is usually not accepted or understood by the public. Although I believe the movie would work fine without the vile and disgusting language and recommend an edited for television version, there is a case made for its socially redeeming value. The movie paints a clear picture of the poverty that Karras left for his "prestigious" job in the church. It seems real priests and nuns have that much in common with the fiction.