Fr. Donald Calloway, the popular American priest of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception who is a leading proponent of the Divine Mercy devotions, and the author and editor of numerous books on Mariology, was another young person who experienced the grace of Medjugorje in his remarkable conversion story and in his road to the priesthood (see the story, “Father Calloway – Saved by Medjugorje and the Virgin Mary” on MinistryValues). Fr. Calloway, who studied at the Franciscan University in Ohio and at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., acknowledged that even in America—where we often are reminded of the shortage of vocations—Medjugorje has played a central role in encouraging young men to pursue the priesthood. In an interview that Fr. Calloway gave in February 2004, he explained how many young men he met in seminary who were as inspired by Medjugorje as he was to pursue the vocation:
“I loved every minute of Medjugorje. I'm going back in March. It's the edge of Heaven, wonderful...Our Lady is building up this army, this whole new generation, layer by layer. Rank by rank they are coming out of seminaries to take their places. There's a whole generation of priests coming, and they're just like me. No nonsense. I always tell people, get ready, because it's coming to a parish near you...We've been formed by the Blessed Virgin Mary and her apparitions. So many of the guys I knew in seminary, they loved things like Medjugorje or Betania or Amsterdam or Kibeho. They don't have a problem with it. They bite onto truth like a shark, and they're going to be the guys in the seminaries teaching. They're going to be in parishes. One cardinal said if it were not for Medjugorje, he would have hardly any seminarians. I compare it to Guadalupe.”
