Natalie Smith has been called the "monk marketer."

Brother Luke walks along the grounds of the Gethsemani Abbey in Trappist, Ky. Thursday, May 13, 2004, where brothers who have lived at the monastery are buried. The abbey is home to monks but also hosts a retreat house and those who feel they may enter the order, who live and pray with the monks. (The Enquirer/Craig Ruttle)

Five years ago she founded www.VocationsPlacement.org, a Web site that she says now refers about 700 potential monk, nun and priest candidates a week to 170 Catholic religious communities and dioceses around the country.

"Our goal is to solve the (religious) vocations crisis," she says from her home in South Florida. "Right now there is no national way of sowing and reaping vocational candidates."

Clients include Kentucky's Abbey of Gethsemani, which Smith says is the country's most popular monastery among potential monk candidates. In the past three and a half years, VocationsPlacement.org has sent about 600 men there to participate in the abbey's "live-in experience."

If you're interested

The Abbey of Gethsemani's live-in experience caters to Catholic men who are considering a call to be a monk. But others - including women - are welcome to make the abbey a retreat destination. Unlike the live-in experience, retreats are unstructured. Guests can attend prayer services, if they choose. Guests must be at least 18 (16 or older if accompanied by an adult). There is no formal charge for the stay, but free-will offerings are accepted. Information: (502) 549-4129 or www.monks.org. — John Johnston

Smith says that for every 100 candidates in the VocationsPlacement.org database, about four enter religious life.

To increase the pool of candidates, Smith employs marketing skills she used while working for a large corporation. She quit, she says, to find meaning in her life. Now she wants to help others do the same.

"I'm in contact with people from 16 to 60," she says. "I'm told people in their late 30s to middle 50s respond the most" to a religious calling.

VocationsPlacement.org advertises through Catholic church bulletins and newspapers. It also offers an online vocations test at www.testyourcall.org and www.testyourcall.com.

For information, call (800) 221-1807.