It is clear that the Church leaders regard the Eagle rank as a very important goal for the young men to pursue. It is, in my opinion, unfortunate that in the Priest Duty to God booklet, this seems to be the sole focus of Scouting for priests. However, the Venturing awards do have much in common with the path to Eagle. This is helpful to know when working with priests who are trying to finish the Eagle rank. (It seems as though Venturing literature does not comment on this, as it is a separate division and Eagle/merit badges are not a formal part of the program.) They can work on Venturing awards, and get merit badges out of the way at the same time.
Many of the Venturing award requirements match exactly with merit badge requirements, or at least match closely enough that one could earn both at the same time. For example, the Sports bronze is nearly identical to the Sports merit badge. The Collections, Coin Collecting, and Stamp Collecting merit badges could be earned in harmony with the Arts and Hobbies Bronze. Many of the Ranger award requirements are each nearly identical to corresponding merit badges, such as Cooking, Backpacking, Camping, Emergency Preparedness, Land Navigation=Orienteering, Wilderness Survival, Cycling, Fishing, Physical Fitness=Personal Fitness. Others also have a strong overlap.
Venturing award requirements, although comparable to merit badge requirements, are intended to get Venturers to become proficient in skills, and not just barely able to get by (as sometimes happens with merit badges). Perhaps this will present challenges when youth are used to the merit badge level of expectation, and the crew expects that little bit extra. I'm not yet sure, as I haven't quite tried this out yet.
In addition, I expect that there will be young men who become active in the Scouting program through Venturing that are too old to be able to earn the Eagle award. Perhaps they will want to follow the prophets counsel, but are unable to do so because of prior choices or simply because they joined too late. Using the Venturing Silver award program, these young men can achieve a goal that I believe is completely comparable to the Eagle rank. I would have liked to see some mention (say in general conference or the Duty to God booklets) of the Venturing awards as desirable for the priests to pursue.