Archbishop Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York recently sat down with Catholic News Agency to speak about the vocations crisis. He points to how the vocation of Holy Matrimony is intricately tied to the vocation of Holy Orders.

The first challenge he sees is the instability of marriage and family. He said

That’s where we have the real vocation crisis,” he remarked, noting that “only 50% of our Catholic young people are getting married.

Abp. Dolan attributes the real vocations crisis to "life-long, life-giving, loving, faithful marriage" and that to solve this problem would solve the crisis of vocations to the priesthood and religious life.

Families have decreased in size. Concurrent with the decrease in family size is the astronomic surge in consumerism, the materialism that marks our age of discontent. It follows that the dependence on material things for contentment and consolation leads to the silencing of the call of God.