"I would like the general Catholic community to understand their responsibility to encourage and support vocations as well," Father Forner said. Catholics need to seriously and to enthusiastically convey to potential priests that, despite current scandals, it’s a very worthwhile way of life, said Father Forner.

Incoming Director Father Tom Daly asks "the Catholic people to really pray for the Church at this time, that people will open their hearts to God working in their lives and not get discouraged." Scandal and sin provide "a great opportunity for holiness," Father Daly said. "We have nowhere to go but up."

The morale of priests has been affected by the sex abuse scandal, Father Forner said, but not the number of vocation inquiries.

The screening process is "much more difficult, rigid and demanding than it was 30 or 40 years ago," he said. "By and large, because of the more careful screening, the quality of present-day seminarians is high."

Father Daly said it is possible that some of the priests guilty of sexual abuse of children "never really had vocations." Some are mentally ill, some are weak, and "others just chose the priesthood without really having a calling," he said.

Discussions at the just-concluded Continental Congress on Vocations in Montreal showed that celibacy is an obstacle to vocation recruitment, Father Forner said. "If the option was there to marry as a priest many men would give it more serious thought," Father Forner said.

Father Daly said many young men may think they are incapable of living a celibate life. "We have to realize and keep in mind there’s a grace from God there that we can’t underestimate," he said. "It’s helping young people see that it’s not a sense of weirdness or incompleteness. We need to see why this is asked of priests in the Roman Catholic Church. Young people will respond to a challenge if they understand why."

People must convey that there is something about priesthood that is absolutely essential to the Church, and that is the Eucharist, Father Daly said.

If the only reason the Church maintains the rule of celibacy is to preserve wealth, a perception that some have, "then that’s not of God," Father Daly said. Celibacy puts the priest in a state where he "totally belongs to God in God’s service. It’s a complete giving of one’s self as Christ did to the will of the Father. That’s what a priest is asked to do."

If one has a call to priesthood, the call to celibacy is there too, Father Daly said. "Some people, for whatever reason, didn’t want to get married, or they are afraid of women, or they’ve never had a date in their life. They may have chosen priesthood on those grounds. Those are not authentic reasons."

Another sexual issue, that of homosexuality among clergy, is a consideration for potential priests, Father Forner said, but it is "not problematic unless a man fails to integrate his sexuality into his way of life, into Christian living."

Father Daly said "integration" for a homosexual man means that he is asked to be a father in an environment of all men. "Is he capable of that?"

"Integration means knowledge of and acceptance of the Church’s teaching on sexuality and chastity," Father Daly said.

On the heels of the April 21 World Day of Prayer for Vocations, Father Forner described archdiocesan vocations programs that have succeeded and others that have proved disappointing. Every parish should have an active parish vocations committee through which parishioners encourage vocations within the community, he said. Parish-based programs allow people to call potential vocations by name and to pray over them.

Another program, "Operation Andrew," features priests identifying possible candidates and inviting them to dinner with the bishop. The program’s name comes from the Gospel story of Andrew, who invited his brother Peter to follow Christ.

These programs have much potential and bring success, Father Forner said. Others have been less successful. A few years ago a house of discernment was formed for people to come to live while they considered becoming a priest but it didn’t succeed because men in this area "didn’t want to pull up roots for six months to a year."

In its place, a non-residential vocations program at San Francisco’s St. John Parish has proved to be "very successful." In three years, five or six seminarians have come from the program, and Father Forner expects three or four new ones in the coming year.

A difficult but not necessarily failure-ridden vocations endeavor is working with foreign-born inquirers from other countries, Father Forner said.

While some dioceses actively recruit from other countries, paying for travel and helping with immigration matters, this archdiocese requires them to relocate here on their own, get a job, find a place to live, and handle immigration issues.

The archbishop wants to focus on local vocations, Father Forner said. And they exist, said Father Daly, who has spent10 years teaching and conducting campus ministry at Marin Catholic High, and who serves as chaplain at Catholic Youth Organization’s St. Vincent School for Boys.

"I have a lot of hope," said Father Daly, "and teaching high school has been a cause for that hope. In some kids there is a deep yearning for God. Those are the kids who may have vocations." "In conversations with young people I have found that what resonates is that some kids never see themselves as possible priests or religious," said Father Daly. They ask themselves, "Why me?" and say this is not something they would have chosen. Father Daly points out to them the "most unlikely people" whom God chooses to do His work: Moses, Abraham, Mary, Vincent de Paul.

Thus, his theme for the vocations ministry: "You did not choose me. I chose you." (John 15:16). He added, "The very person who thinks he is worthy of the priesthood is probably the last person we need."

Father Daly stressed a focus on prayer "first and foremost." "Jesus Christ said to ‘beg the harvest master to send laborers into the vineyard,’ that’s a pretty strong word, ‘beg.’ Of course that means prayer," Father Daly said. Also, priests and religious need to model faithfulness to vows and vocations to inspire the young.

Seminaries and novitiates must teach the official Church teachings because "no young person is going to commit themselves to an ambiguous, generic form of ministry. There is something very specific about priesthood and religious life," Father Daly said.

Also, families need to be open about and speak positively about vocations, he said. As he prepares to turn over the vocations office to Father Daly on about July 1, Father Forner recalled several highlights of his last five years in the ministry. Working directly with seminarians, tracking their progress through formation and for some, ordination, was a highlight, as was conducting interviews and sessions with men inquiring about the priesthood. To these pluses he added that camaraderie among other vocations ministers throughout the country was uplifting.

"Needing by circumstance to have lots of different people involved in the process of men being accepted or not," was a difficult part of his work he said. "It’s time consuming — and needs to be."

Another difficulty: "Vocations ministry almost by design takes the priest out of parish ministry. Both things are shortchanged," said the temporary administrator of St. Benedict’s deaf parish for the past10 months.

"Many throughout the country say their time and energy are very divided and it’s unfair." Father Forner is looking forward to full-time parish ministry. "My first love of 27 years as a priest is parish ministry. It’s been a disappointment not to connect," he said.