TORONTO (Reuters) - It looks just like a job fair and in many ways it is.
There are booths, slick brochures, video presentations and even free chocolate chip cookies and T-shirts to stop passers-by. But the career opportunities do not involve accounting, law or medicine and the starting salaries would make most college graduates laugh.
The head hunters at the Roman Catholic Church's World Youth Day at Toronto's sprawling Exhibition Center are looking for a few good men and women to become future priests and nuns.
Faced by a steady decline in vocations around the world, religious orders are using new techniques to interest the young in taking up a life of religion.
"Hi! Howya doing," says one nun, handing out flyers inviting the young people to visit the Vocation.com Coffee House.
"This is like a religious job fair. So what's wrong with that?" Franciscan Friar Greg Spuhler says while a flood of young people mill around in front of his booth where almonds and cookies the color of the brown Franciscan habit serve as vocational bait.
Inside the Exhibition Hall, the young people cruise among the 30 booths picking up free samples as they would in shops in a suburban shopping mall.
There are brochures from well-known religious orders such as the Franciscans, the Dominicans and the Maryknolls to much more obscure orders such as the Grey Nuns.
It is like the difference between joining Microsoft or a cottage software company.
"I think most kids didn't even know there were so many different orders," said Sister Nancy of the Adrian Dominican nuns, a small branch of the Dominican order.
"There clearly are some kids who are here just because it was a trip away from home but there also are some kids here because they come from a strong faith background. But I think a lot of them are open to vocations," she said.
COMPETITION FOR VOCATIONS
Is there competition among the orders?
"Of course there is and that's why its important to get them talking. But even if a half dozen people who come by eventually join us that would be a great success," she said.
If girls tell them they want to wear a habit -- the Adrian Dominican sisters do not -- Sister Nancy tells them they might want to go elsewhere.
"I tell them that the work is more important than what you wear and if it isn't they won't stay long."
There is something for everyone at the Vocation fair.
There are orders who work with the poor, with migrants, with inner-city children or battered women. Others work in hospital care or education.
Some are highly traditional, such as the Legionaries of Christ -- whose priests almost always hear the clerical collar and look as clean cut as Marines -- to the Missionaries of Africa -- some of whom wear Dashikis.
The archdiocese of Los Angeles hands out a CD-ROM called "God's Design" which it calls "a unique, multimedia, interactive encyclopedia of vocation stories." It includes frequently asked questions about being a priest or nun.
"Things have been going marvelously. It's great to stand here before this booth and watch people from all over the world show interest. There have been a number of kids who want to know who we are, what we do, why we live the way we do and how our story can blend in a bit into their story," said Spuhler, an American,.
He adds: "We have had a couple of hits from people who are seriously considering the religious life and I just encourage them to continue thinking about it and if I think the Franciscans may not be for them, I send them to another booth. It's all in the family," he said.
The Grey Sisters win the prize for the crowd-stopper at the fair.
Their booth sports a plaster image of a nun's habit with a hole for the face area so young women can see what they would look like if they joined.