A Filipino Catholic church official in Vatican City has urged parents to teach their children about the Lord’s teachings.

In an article posted on the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news website on Friday, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, former head of the Archdiocese of Manila who is now the pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization in the Vatican, said vocations should start at home.

“When the parents do not exercise their mission of transmitting the faith of leading their children to Jesus, we will have a vocational crisis,” Tagle said.

“Please, let us not forget Jesus as the most important destination so that our joy may be complete.”

Tagle’s message was part of a recorded video message from Rome that was shown to over 400 attendees of an international gathering of vocation promoters in Thailand on Friday.

The Vatican official noted that a vocation remains alive “when it goes out and searches other people to be led to Jesus.”

“A vocation that does not seek other people to be led to Jesus is a vocation that will dry up, will wither away,” Tagle said.

About 450 are participating in the 80th Serra International Convention on June 19-25.

Serra International is the only lay organization aggregated to the Pontifical Work for Vocations to the Priesthood within the Congregation for the Clergy.

Since 1935, when it began in the United States, more than 1,100 Serra clubs have been chartered in 46 countries.

The organization’s global lay vocation apostolate currently has over 20,000 members. (PNA)