Fr. Travis Crotty, vocations director for the Diocese of Sioux City, shares how a new team of priests and a deacon is helping young men discern a call to the priesthood. He explains why young Catholics are seeking a solid, serious faith, how Catholic high schools are becoming seedbeds for vocations, and why priests living as brothers attract men to the priesthood. Fr. Crotty also tells the story of Msgr. John Smith, the first priest in northwest Iowa, who founded 25 parishes on horseback.
Fr. Travis Crotty, vocations director for the Diocese of Sioux City, joins Deacon Mark Campbell from his new assignment as parochial administrator of St. Patrick Parish in Estherville, Holy Family Parish in Emmetsburg, and Immaculate Conception Parish in Graettinger. With Fr. Crotty and Fr. Shane Deman, the diocese's director of seminarians, both now leading parishes, the vocations office has added help: Fr. Zach Jones of Divine Mercy Parish in West Bend will visit high schools and Newman Centers, including the University of Iowa and Iowa State, and Deacon Dan Goebel, deacon chaplain at Gehlen Catholic in Le Mars, will coordinate events and accompany men in discernment.
Fr. Crotty explains why a team approach matters: the priesthood is not a "Lone Ranger" life but a brotherhood lived in communion across generations, and young men notice that. He sees young Catholics making decisive choices for a solid faith, going to confession, attending Mass, and seeking a deeper relationship with the Lord. A growing share of the diocese's seminarians and applicants now come from its Catholic high schools, and summer pilgrimages and retreats have built a real community of young men encouraging each other in the faith.
He also shares the history of his new parishes. Holy Family's Assumption Church in Emmetsburg is the oldest continuously operating church in the diocese, and in 1871 it welcomed Msgr. John Smith, an Irish-ordained priest and the first to serve northwest Iowa, who went on to establish 25 parishes on horseback. A portrait of Msgr. Smith now hangs in Fr. Crotty's office next to an 1860s map of northwest Iowa with counties but no towns, a reminder that the same faith that built Iowa's Catholic communities is the faith we practice today.
Learn more about vocations at the Diocese of Sioux City.
Heard on the Catholic Morning Show, weekdays at 7 a.m. Central on Iowa Catholic Radio. More at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
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