Fr. Corey Bruns, parochial vicar of St. Joseph Parish in Bowling Green, genuflects during Eucharistic Adoration, held as part of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage passing through western Kentucky on July 3, 2024. Fr. Bruns assumes the role of vocations director for the Diocese of Owensboro on June 10, 2025. ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD | WKC
‘Joyfully and with courage’
Incoming vocations director says priesthood, religious life ‘a life that’s worth living, a life that’s worth choosing’
BY ELIZABETH WONG BARNSTEAD, THE WESTERN KENTUCKY CATHOLIC
Shortly after Bishop William F. Medley told Fr. Corey Bruns that he would like him to serve as the diocese’s next vocations director, Fr. Bruns found himself in Eucharistic Adoration begging God, “You’ve got to do something to make me know this is your will.”
It was during this period of Adoration, held during the Diocese of Owensboro’s annual priest convocation at Saint Meinrad Archabbey in January, that one of the deacon-seminarians was tapped to proclaim the Gospel.
A Gospel passage had not been selected, so the seminarian, Dcn. Conrad Jaconette, chose one that ended up startling Fr. Bruns into recognition and acceptance.
“It was the Gospel that had been used at my priesthood ordination four years ago,” Fr. Bruns told The Western Kentucky Catholic, explaining that it featured the dialogue between Christ and St. Peter after the Resurrection, during which Our Lord asked him, “Peter, do you love me? … Tend my sheep.”
It was then that he knew.
While still feeling “inadequate,” he realized that “my inadequacies are what have formed me the most in my priesthood – it is in those instances that Christ does the most,” said Fr. Bruns.
Fr. Bruns, transitioning out of his current role as parochial vicar of St. Joseph Parish in Bowling Green, assumes the role of vocations director on June 10. He follows in the footsteps of outgoing vocations director, Fr. Daniel Dillard, who is becoming the pastor of St. Martin Parish in Rome, Ky.
He acknowledged that a lot will be new to him, since the stages of seminary formation have been updated since he was a seminarian. This includes the addition of a propaedeutic year, which provides a robust year of discernment in which seminarians begin to develop “a life of prayer, study, fraternity, and appropriate docility to formation,” according to the sixth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation.
Fr. Bruns said he will meet with Bishop Medley later this spring to discuss goals and plans for the Office of Vocations and looks forward to learning from other dioceses that also “have a large rural population, and are getting vocations,” he said.
He hopes to embrace the digital realm and social media to help foster interest in vocations among younger demographics.
“I don’t think that you need to be a TikTok vocations director,” he quipped, “but there are ways to use new media.”
Fr. Bruns said a big influence in fostering vocations is the “personal” connection, that is, “seeing a priest in a moment that speaks to them.”
In embracing his vocation, he has sought to demonstrate that the priesthood and religious life are “a life that’s worth living, a life that’s worth choosing.”
“I’m really trying to reinforce the idea that love means we give ourselves away” into whatever vocation one is called to, he said, “and to be able to do that joyfully and with courage.”
As Fr. Bruns chats with members of the faithful about his upcoming role, “I just keep telling people to pray for our Church, pray for our seminarians, and pray for me” to be a good vocations director, he said.
He emphasized that when it comes to vocations awareness, “it’s not just me, it’s a team approach,” he said.
“We are all called to invite and also work for (vocations),” he said, adding that “we’re all called to be saints and bring as many people to heaven as possible.”
Learn more at owensborovocations.com.
Originally printed in the May 2025 issue of The Western Kentucky Catholic.
