April 14, 2025

MENLO PARK, CA – A record-high thirty-seven prospective Catholic U.S. Military chaplains gathered at St. Patrick’s Seminary this past weekend for the annual spring discernment retreat for young men discerning a possible “vocation within a vocation” as both Catholic priests and military chaplain officers on active duty. The Vocations Office of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA (AMS), holds two of these retreats each year—one in the spring on the West Coast and another in the fall on the East Coast—as part of its ongoing strategy to relieve a shortage of Catholic priests on active duty.