It is one of the most difficult decisions any aspiring priest must make.Can he live for the rest of his life without sexual relationships and marriage?
Fr Martin Whelan, who was recently ordained, considered the celibacy issue carefully before he enrolled in the seminary at Maynooth after he left school.
"This was something I had to think about seriously,'' says Fr Whelan, who is now a priest at Galway Cathedral.
"I had to think about whether having a relationship and a family makes you a better person and enables you to develop. I had to discover whether I could be a happy and fulfilled person with celibacy.
"In the seminary, I found that I could be happy and fulfilled, so I was able to continue with my vocation."
Fr Whelan's motivation in becoming a priest was a simple one.
"I had a belief that I had a vocation from God. It is a deep calling and it is as if God is touching you."
In the Ireland of the Celtic Tiger era, Fr Whelan's career choice would have been considered wildly unconventional. The joys of the spiritual life did not appear to be uppermost in the minds of the generation dubbed 'The Pope's Children'.
As part of his training in the seminary, Martin Whelan enrolled as a science student at NUI Maynooth and saw how the others lived.
"I don't begrudge the way young people lived then. I have to admit that at times I felt jealous of them."
As the recession forces people to make dramatic adjustments in their careers, however, there may be signs of a spiritual reawakening.
The numbers going forward for the priesthood and religious orders are rising steadily again. The number of men entering the diocesan priesthood is now at its highest level since 1999.
Religious orders are also enjoying an upsurge in interest. Thirteen trainees have recently joined the Dominican Order.
Now that we are in deep recession, it is tempting to suggest that young people are becoming priests for not entirely selfless reasons -- they desperately need a job.
In God's house, there are many mansions and currently a lot of vacancies.
But senior clergy are quick to dispel this notion of an opportunistic recession bounce in the number of vocations.
As one priest puts it: "Most of these men are leaving well-paid jobs and comfortable living conditions to live in a room in a seminary off a corridor."
The Catholic Church's director of vocations, Fr Paddy Rushe, says: "Many of these guys coming in are interesting characters. After all, they are coming into the church at a time when it is facing great hostility.
"So it is not an easy choice. They are hardly going in for a life of comfort, because the training takes a minimum of five years. They are rejecting a life of individualism for a life of service."
Sister Eileen Linehan, director of vocations for the religious orders in Ireland, says: "We are now attracting a group of people who are prepared to go against the grain."
The motivation for the new generation of devout seminarians has changed dramatically since the 1960s, when some priests went in because it was a respectable profession offering plenty of opportunities. At that time, most of the best teaching jobs in the country were taken by the clergy.
"There was a time when almost every family seemed to want to have a priest in the family. Now the opposite is true in many cases," says Sr Eileen.
"If you say you are going to be a priest, many people will try to dissuade you."
Coming from Ardrahan, a rural area in Co Galway, Martin Whelan says he was fortunate in receiving the support of his family and friends.
"I decided I wanted to be a priest when I was in school. I would have kept it fairly quiet.
"When I came out and said what I was going to do, people were very encouraging. I would not say that their reaction was one of disapproval.
"People are more intrigued than anything when you tell them you are going to be a priest. The reaction is one of curiosity."
Fr Whelan says he is sickened and upset by the child-abuse scandal within the church. But he believes that there is still a positive attitude to the church at a local level. "It is a time of great crisis,'' he says.
"The church has been through many radical transformations in the past. I think we should see this crisis as a time to make important decisions.''
Young men are not coming back to the church because they see it as an easy path to a job (with accommodation provided).
Fr Rushe believes that the recession has played an important role in the rise in vocations.
"During the boom, a lot of men may have had it in the back of their minds that they wanted to be a priest, but because of their jobs they put it off.
"Because of the recession, they are making the change sooner than they might have.''
It is this new generation of young priests that could ultimately decide the future of the church. They are entering the church at a time when an injection of youth is desperately needed.
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