The older vocation, which was once the exception, has become more common, but 25 percent of the ordinands still are under the age of 30 and 60 percent under the age of 35. The correlation between Catholic school enrollment and vocations to the priesthood has been a consistent finding in the vocation research of the last three years. Commitment to Catholic schools, including the presence of priests and religious in them, is crucial to increasing the number of vocations to the priesthood and consecrated life. I suspect that some lawyers discover that the practice of law is not quite what they imagined it would be and are looking for a way of serving others more directly. Their presence adds to the diversity of the seminary community.
Older students can bring a more serious approach to their studies.
They have experience and can more easily make connections between study and real life situations. At the same time, their personalities and lifestyles are more set and they are not always as malleable to priestly formation. The ideal is that both older and younger seminarians learn from and support each other. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops has just completed a three-year National Strategy on Vocations entitled, Future Full of Hope. This strategy enabled the U.S. dioceses to focus on vocations to both the priesthood and consecrated life.