Those recent college graduates with educational debt need to pay off their debts prior to following their vocation as a priest, brother, nun or sister. No one is allowed to carry debt into religious life. Morally and economically religious orders can't assume the educational debt of new recruits. They can help, but it is unfair for them shoulder the entire financial burden given finances today. Some orders, depending on the size of the loan will pay the student loans off over time as the new recruit progresses in the order. But there are ways to work through the financial burden without getting despondent.Here is Jenn Garza's story. Jenn wants to be a Norbertine nun of the Bethlehem Priory of Saint Joseph but needs help in paying off $53,000.
Read this website about the Litany Run: 26.2 to the Monastery, and how to help as part of your lenten almsgiving.
Living in debt to a bank, government or a family member is not a good thing at all, even if you are not entering religious life or priesthood. But it is unavoidable today. Modest income people can't afford huge tuition bills but at the same time our students deserve the best education. So the tensions for Christians is that they ought not to carry large amounts debt, educational or personal for very long. If anything, Christians ought to save a percentage of money for a "rainy day" (like unemployment) and make a sensible donations to worthy causes.
Greetings,
While there is a plain moral case for promoting a sound economy, and a good education of it by its consumers, ultimately, I wonder if we are all—to greater or less degree—that family man about whom St. Thomas Aquinas resolved that it is not theft if you need it to feed your family. Also, maybe it’s not a bad idea to forgo the requirement of a college education — where in the many instances the Church would be better severed by holiness.
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