Dear June,  

Marriage and religious life are not equal vocations, they are different from one another. There are reasons to say that religious life is a "higher calling", but you have to balance that out with "to whom more is given, more is asked of him." True holiness is not easy or automatic in either state of life, and it depends more on the love and generosity with which you live your particular call, rather than on the call being to religious life or marriage.  

Your friend is simply wrong when he says that everyone is called to the religious vocation. The Church has always treated marriage with more dignity than the mere toleration of those who weren't generous enough to become religious. True, St Paul wished that all could be like him, free of a spouse in order to give themselves completely to Christ without distraction, no harm in desiring that, it shows how St Paul loved and thrived on the call he received from Christ; but St Paul also wrote the letter to the Ephesians in which he describes marriage as a reflection of Christ's love for his Church, and in many places in his letters he reminds his followers of the great difference between them and the world about them, their call to holiness, the new ideal of marriage given to us in Christ, etc...  

I don't think your friend has read enough either of Pope John Paul's explanations of love and marriage. Plus, in my own experience I know many people who have been generous enough to try a religious vocation, and have discovered for reasons that were NOT lack of generosity, that it was not their call. Christ himself told the Gerasene man he cured, and who wanted to leave his home and follow him, to go back to his house. Now if the only way was the religious vocation why would Christ himself point this man in another direction?  

There are many other things that could be mentioned, but these might do to start.  

God bless.