The Fund for Vocations recently announced that it has awarded student loan payment assistance to 13 new applicants who are considering entering the Catholic religious life.
“Vocations are the lifeblood of the Church, and it is a tragedy to lose even one to a solvable problem like student debt,” Corey Huber, the chairman of the charitable organization, said in a statement shared with The College Fix.
The organization helps college graduates with student loan debt pay their loans while they contemplate becoming a priest, nun or religious brother. Religious orders often require a vow of poverty and even priests who work for a diocese do not make much money. Student loans cannot be absorbed by religious orders.
The Fix recently spoke to Mary Radford, the Fund’s executive director, to learn more about its recent successes and why the work they do is important.
Radford said that the organization, which has been around for 15 years, has a “100 percent success rate.” This is because every time it can make a student loan payment, it helps one more person discern if the religious life is right for them.
“By the time they’ve come to us, they’ve already been accepted into the community,” Radford said. “Usually the last hurdle to entrance is this student loan debt.”
The mission is “streamlined” — all the charity does is pay student loans.
Furthermore, Radford said, it’s better that they pay the loans only while the applicant is in the discernment process. That way no one feels pressured to stay in the religious life just because an organization paid off their entire student loans.
Numerous victories
“Over the last 15 years we’ve helped almost 250 young people enter formation. Of those people…it would be probably close to 200 [priests and nuns],” Radford said. The charity’s website lists more stories about people who have discerned their vocations.
The organization would ideally like to be able to accept every applicant’s request for aid — something it was able to do this year, for the second time in the organization’s history.
“We’re hoping that moving forward that will be our new tradition, is being able to accept every qualified applicant,” Radford said. “We can’t afford to lose a vocation in today’s culture.”
The above comes from a March 19 story on the College Fix.
I’d like to see statistics about diversity among new and discerning vocations. Are Black or Brown women and men aware of this program so they can benefit from it? Do communities reach out to them affirmative-action style to encourage vocations among People of Color? Is there equity in the postulancy and novitiate rates of various religious communities? Is there equity in the rates of those who make final vows? Vocations are good, but if there is inequity in the outcomes of those becoming religious or ordained then it is a sign of subtle racism at work, even in the church.
Bigotry is where arrogance and ignorance meet.
I googled “race of nuns”. The top search results mainly covered a virtual 5k run by Little Sisters of the Poor and another one on for a benefit for the Urslines in Baltimore.
Is that the info you are looking for, “Kris”? Does that help? You’re welcome!
We don’t know who is and isn’t aware of the program? How would we?
Judging by outcome is not very intelligent. Stop assuming and do the work. Go ask the people who know and develop your thesis by facts not speculation.
Also, you would have to interview people who were wanting to be a religious to make sure of the reasons.
Social science is science not guessing. There are methods to avoid investigator bias.
You speculation cannot be proved or disproved without serious investigation.
Why don’t you let them in on it? (Trigger warning) Whites are the minority in the Catholic Church.
Kris, although I don’t see people through the lens of color or race, it’s clear that the Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, to which Sister Raphaelle Marie (in the above photo and story) belongs is quite diverse (by your standard).
That said, of course, there are only women, since it is a women’s Religious community. And, their average age is relatively young (since they’re a relatively young and growing community), yet they are currently raising funds to build an Aging in Place Home to provide quality care for some of their Sisters who are now entering their last years.
Also, if you know of any “Black or Brown women and men” who are not aware of this program, I encourage you to tell them.
Be encouraged.
Kris, I am male hispanic and is NOT racist if they try to find ANY RACE and only whites answer. There are MILLONS of hispanics that are white so you never know.
This is just not true. If the outcomes are inequitable, it’s because of racism. Even if you deny it, even if you don’t see it, the racism is there. Anti-racism must be employed to ensure equitable outcomes. God calls all his children of all races equitably. If they are not equitably represented in the structures of the church, systemic racism is to blame.
The call is equitable.
The responses to the call, therefore, results, depend upon human freedom.
For example, if Irish-Americans are “over-represented” in police departments and construction work while Filipino-Americans are “under-represented,” should we “draft” Filipino-Americans into law enforcement and construction and force them to work there?
They’re also “under-represented” in the NBA. Should Mark Cuban (a liberal) be required to “draft” Filipino-Americans and force them to play on his basketball team?
You are good, Kris! You parody the left very well. (You almost had me there.)
Labeling serious anti-racist arguments a joke or a parody is another white supremacist tactic to discredit anti-racist efforts. Just as systems of white power attempt to “other” People of Color by labeling them, they also attempt to “other” ideas that would build up Black and Brown peoples. By “othering” them and their ideas, white power structures marginalize them further and prevent them from assuming roles in the mainstream of society and in the structures of power. It all has to be dismantled. Even your little joke, which was a racist microaggression.
The key is this: you cannot criticize anti-racism ideas or programs in any way without being racist. You must support anti-racism whole-cloth. Criticism of anti-racism or of people who espouse anti-racism demonstrates that you are a racist because you oppose dismantling the white supremacist systemically racist power structures in society, even if you don’t realize that about yourself.
You do the exact thing that you accuse others of.
At least 3 commenters have called you out as a fraud. I am sorry if you are seriously anti-racist. You seem like a white person who is making fun of serious anti-racism.
We can’t tell.
LOL! I love it! Nobody parodies the left like Kris.
Kris, you now know what the Lord calls you to do.
“If the outcomes are inequitable, it’s because of racism.”
Prove it.
It’s an axiom of anti-racism as well as common sense. If a group is a certain percentage of the whole population but is not proportionally represented in some population subset, then there are systemic societal oppressive factors at work that have caused the inequitable outcome. To question it or to demand proof is a subtle way of perpetuating the structures of white systemic oppression that result in the disproportionate outcomes. If you are not anti-racist, you are part of the problem.
“To question it or to demand proof is a subtle way of perpetuating the structures of white systemic oppression that result in the disproportionate outcomes.”
Kris – Now, I fully understand that you are incapable from understanding a very fundamental concept. In order to make a case for a subject, one has to provide underlying data to support their theorem. You have not done so. Suffice to say, I’ve learned my lesson that folks like you are not interested in facts.
Here is my respone to your ilk:
I have no shame, embarrassment, or guilt. I take no responsibility for things I didn’t do. I do not apologize for sins I never committed. I am not guilty of anything just because of my race.
Molon labe.
OK Kris, I may be with Juan. You’re really a conservative setting up a caricature of a Marxist leftist to be knocked down on this platform, no?
I was going to say setting up a straw man to be easily knocked down, but I “woke” and realized it had to be a straw person (of a non-specified and fluid gender).
I personally know of no one who is pro-racist.
Come clean! Honestly, you don’t really believe that, do you?
Catholics are anti-racist. Catholics were probably the first anti-racist. Of course, now, their attempts to be inclusive to all people is criticized and called imperialism or colonialism. I think you have given us a good reminder that we still need to evangelize.
Outcomes don’t tell the whole story. There is racism. Hollywood and the media who have done much harm to racial relationships in our country are starting to correct themselves. It has gotten a little mean and spiteful in places and people are being harmed psychologically and emotionally but we will get through this phase. Some of the individuals might not.
Our nation is polarized between those who want kindness and those who want meanness. Of course most people just want to get through the day with everybody in the family alive, with a place to sleep and food to eat.
Kris, I apologize to you for my comments that have mocked or ridiculed you. Perhaps you are genuinely attempting to stand up against racism and prejudice in the world.
I think you have brought up a good point which is that we need to make sure that all are invited to live the religious life. This is an area where we all rise together.
There seems to be an attitude among some that they cannot rise unless they put other people down. How quickly one race becomes the underdog just with a few words. Words are powerful.
This younger generation (and the older ones) have quickly learned that they are not wanted, not accepted, will be discriminated against. It doesn’t take much to shatter people.
Oh my, Kris. We do speak the party line. In this country, Kris, we were founded and today are concerned with equality of opportunity not equality of outcomes. Perhaps you hadn’t noticed? Oh, and by the way, what is a “people of color”? That term needs a little more thought before it is spouted and put into the circuitry of robots.
Kris, will you please define “racist” and “racism” as you understand it? Those words mean nothing to me. My dog, a multi racial but primarily brown Corgi, which as you know, is smarter than any white dog, told me in so many woofs that he’s racist. I asked him to define racist and racism and he explained it’s anything or anyone of any color that you don’t like, or who doesn’t parrot the propaganda heard on CNN or from a Harvard professor. He confided to me that my refrigerator is racist because it’s white; that my car is racist because it’s white. The UPS and FedEx drivers are generally racist except for those who are brown. He will not bite or snarl at the brown drivers. He tolerates me, a white racist, only because I feed him. I told him to leave home if he was unhappy. He arfed, “are you kidding”? He’s a typical liberal mutt, smarter than most humans, but I love him.
Kris, this is a Catholic website. The Founder of our religion wa a Middle Eastern Jew– Christ, the Son of God. His followers were originally Jewish, but expanded to include people of all races, globally. We currently has a Pope who was an Italian immigrant to a Hispsnic country. Most of the Catholic Popes have been Italian. There are thousands of great Saints, of all races! Christianity has spread to every corner of the globe, and the Bible has been translated into every language. We have never had an “all-white” Church, ever, in all our history! Latin America, prior to Vatican II, had a major share of all the world’s Catholics, led by thousands of Spanish and Portuguese-speaking priests, bishops– and nuns. Today, Africa and Asia are now the fastest-growing Catholic areas of the world, with thousands of vocations to the priesthood and religious life, from those areas! The Church has always evangelized globally, and recruited priests, brothers, and nuns, in local areas, to serve the people there. A huge percentage of vocations for the priesthood and religious life today, in America, are Asian, Hispanic, and Black! Hispanics are the fastest-growing Catholic group, in America. I don’t think you know the Catholic Church at all, and have probably never been to a Mass– you would not see many White Anglos in the priesthood!– nor as bishops! You should go find out the truth — your constant criticisms are untrue, and a total waste of your time!
Before the Church funds ANYTHING it should fund our schools – without the school we are without Catholics.
I read a fascinating news story, about the 2004 first Miss Black Nevada, Elizabeth Muto. She was adopted by loving parents as a baby, her age estimated at age 3-30 days old. Her mother was Japanese, from San Francisco, and her father was Black, now deceased. After her birth, her birth mother’s roommate was supposed to take the baby to an adoption agency. Instead, the poor baby was found abandoned, at the Delta Airlines gate, at the Reno-Tahoe International Airport. She is now married, in her 40s, a successful beauty consultant, and was able to track down and meet her birth mother, through an organization called “23&Me.” A fascinating story!
When Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive, he always requested that arrangements be made with Catholic hospitals, to take him and provide medical care, in case of emergency. At that time, there was a terrible problem with segregation in parts of the South, and he found that only Catholic hospitals in that region would take Black patients, and would bravely risk threats of violence and death, due to that policy. When King was fatally shot in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, he was rushed to St. Joseph’s hospital in Memphis, where he died. A group of nuns, including a Black nun who was a Civil Rights activist, went into his room and prayed over him, and later told newsmen they felt this to be a great privilege.
Sorry, I made an error in my post of March 29 at 12:08 pm. The famous Black nun, Sister Mary Antona Ebo, who participated in King’s Civil Rights marches, was not among the group of nuns who prayed at King’s bedside, when King died.
Sister Mary Antona Ebo was one of a group of 50 — including nuns, priests, rabbis, and ministers, all races– who answered Rev. King’s call to the clergy, to join his Civil Rights marches. Her religious superior invited her to go. She famously participated with King in the 1965 Selma, AL March. In 1968, she founded the National Black Sisters’ Conference. There are many historic Black Catholic parishes, in the Southeast, and all along the East Coast. In 1871, the Josephite Fathers, who began in England, were given an Oath by Pope Pius IX, to dedicate their Order to serve the needs of American Black Catholics. They also ordained American Blacks as priests. The first American Black Catholic priest (not a Josephite, however), Fr. Augustus Tolton, who was born a slave, studied in Rome, and was ordained there in 1886, on Easter Sunday. He served in the Chicago area, was very holy, was given the title “Venerable” after his death by the Vatican, and is up for Sainthood. Before Tolton, there were a few half-Black American priests. The first American Black nuns, were the Oblate Sisters of Providence, founded in 1829 by a free Black Cuban immigrant, who is now up for Sainthood, in the Vatican– Mother Mary Lange. They educated Black girls in Baltimore, MD. Other famous, holy American Black Catholics up for Sainthood in the Vatican, include: Ven. Pierre Toussaint, Ven. Henriette Delille, Sister Thea Bowman, and Servant of God, Julia Greeley.
The Mizrahi Jews are the largest Jewish ethnic group in Israel, today. It is believed that all Jews came originally from the Mizrahis. Their appearance is similar to Arabic peoples. They sometimes have described themselves as “persons of color,” in categories indicated by organizations such as the U.S.Census Bureau, which previously had no categories for Mizrahi Jews, and others of the Israel region. However, technically speaking, Mizrahis do not qualify as “persons of color,” and are not considered “disadvantaged” in the U.S., as they have not experienced the severe discrimination that “persons of color” in America, such as the Blacks, have experienced. The U.S. Census Bureau has recently created a new category, for Mizrahis and similar peoples– “MENA”– “Middle Eastern, North African.” That would probably be the ethnic group that Jesus belonged to. What did Our Savior, who hung from the Cross, in long-ago Israel, look like?? Probably similar to Mizrahi Jews of today– with dark hair, brown eyes, and brown or olive skin. Regardless– He loves all peoples– all of us are His own! And in Heaven, our souls are all the same– none of us has any “skin color” or “ethnicity!”