What is seminary life suppose to accomplish? Good question I say to myself.
Don’t be shocked, but back in the day, the mid 1970’s, the Church with a 2,000 year tradition, was confused about what the seminary should be, what kind of screening of candidates the church should have and how long seminary formation should be.
Prior to Vatican II, especially in the post WWII era, there were all kinds of applicants. The criteria for entry into a major seminary meant a good academic ability, the candidate came from a good Catholic family where there wasn’t divorce, and no mental illness in the family. Usually candidates were well-known having started seminary in high school or 9th grade.
By the time one entered the last four years (major seminary) there was a no-nonsense approach and men were dismissed from the seminary for minor infractions let alone major ones. Usually they were sent home late at night while seminarians were sleeping and no one really knew why.
High school seminaries have long sense collapsed. That’s good and bad because so many candidates today are not well known within the clerical culture.
For the most part, too, college seminaries are few and far between. Most of our candidates today enter seminary well into college or after graduation.
Bottom line, most candidates are not well known as they approach major seminary. They come from “broken homes” with all kinds of neurosis and dysfunction and they are formed more by the culture than the Church. Pope Francis is placing the latter on steroids and this bodes ill for what kind of candidates will apply to the seminary in the future.
More candidates come from outside the diocese which means they and their families are not known.
Many candidates are converts to Catholicism with no family tradition of Catholicism.
Many Catholics are coloring book post-Vatican II Catholics who have a feel good Catholicism with no substance.
Some are traditional, post-Catholic and all the other labels we have.
Many come from the new movements, charismatic, TLM and whatever.
And since the 1970’s, maybe not so much since 2002, infractions of seminary rules, if there are any, meant no real discipline and seminarians could get away with murder.
My seminary had no dress code, we smoked during class, wore flip flops, shorts and bib overhauls without a shirt. The latter did receive a so pre Vatican II rebuke!
I applied to the Diocese of Savannah my senior year of secular college in late 1974 or ‘75. I did not have any philosophy except for 101. So the vocation director told me to get a minor in philosophy at my college in Augusta. Thus my senior year I went crazy taking philosophy courses in order to get into major seminary directly. I had basically one professor for all my philosophy some of which were private directed studies. He was a Presbyterian minister, great teacher and he challenged me in many ways.
I entered major seminary at St. Mary’s in Baltimore, one of the most liberal and confused seminaries in the country at that time having been the Mercedes Benz of seminaries up until 1968. It is also the oldest seminary in the country of any religion.
It was a 3 and 1/2 year program! We were ordained deacons the fall semester of our 4th year. And in January of that year we were assigned as transitional deacons in a parish in our diocese and then ordained priests that June.
Today, if one does not go to a seminary college, there are three additional years that must be finished before entering 1st Theology of major seminary.
My seminary was an open seminary, we had lay men and women studying with us. We had no curfew, could go out at night and come back early the next morning. I lived in my parish field placement on the weekends in Baltimore. Classes ended on Friday at noon and we had no requirement to be at the seminary during the weekend.
Private devotions to include the rosary, adoration, and Benediction were frowned upon and seminarians known to be doing these devotions publicly were suspect.
Ours was not a monastic formation, quite secular, unlike the pre-Vatican II seminary about 30 miles from us, Mt. Saint Mary’s, which our seminary professors called very, very, very pre-Vatican II and that was not a compliment to say the least.
I’m not sure how many priests ordained from St. Mary’s and Mt. St. Mary’s got in trouble after ordination. I don’t think, though, that it is that different.
I do have to say, that St. Mary’s prided itself, even in the 1970’s, as being rigorous in the academic sense. I appreciated the very good post-Vatican II academic education I received there and it was difficult and much studying was required.
Also, even though the seminary was very anti-pre-Vatican II, we were taught how things would have been taught prior to Vatican II and given the reason for why things changed based on the Vatican II documents. Thus we got pre-Vatican II teachings in order to show how much better the post-Vatican II teachings are.
I really appreciate that aspect of our academics and from that point of view, St. Mary’s did a very good job in terms of what a seminary should do.
8 comments:
Emmitsburg to Baltimore is 56 miles.
I spent 1981 to 1985 at Mt. St. Mary's. As I have often said, The Mount was about as middle-of-the-road theologically as a Catholic seminary could get.
We wore clerical attire to class and, usually, prayer. There were two lay women who took many classes with us, one a housewife from the area and one a retired nurse. We said that, other than the expectation that we were to behave like responsible adults, there were four house rules.
1. Don't wear your cassock except on the altar.
2. If you are away over night (your choice) let your spiritual director know. (Yes, you were expected to be in class the next morning.)
3. We didn't go into the college dorm rooms and the college students didn't come into our seminary rooms.
4. Don't keep alcohol in your room. (The was the most widely ignored rule in the house.)
We could have beards or moustaches, we could read the daily newspaper, listen to the radio, or watch TV in the community room. When "The Thornbirds" aired, the TV room was packed to the rafters. We could go out to dinner and a movie in Gettysburg or Frederick, or spend a day in Baltimore or Washington.
Each floor had a faculty member's apartment, but there were no room checks or requirements to keep the door open when someone was visiting. A few guys smoked in their room (no longer allowed) or outdoors. Some went hunting or fishing in the Maryland mountains, some worked on their cars in the parking lot, or used the art studio in the college for making pottery.
More than half of us came from a Catholic school background. I had plenty of philosophy under my belt, so I started first theology with no "catching up." In seven semesters we were turned loose on the waiting world.
We started with 52 in our class. Some left on their own, some were asked to leave along the way. As for departures, more than half of my class of 39 left after ordination. To my knowledge, three got into trouble with the law, the rest left to get married or follow some other path, and several have become ministers in other denominations - Episcopalians, Lutherans, Old Catholic Church, Polish National Church. The first left after just 6 months (married) and the last I am aware of left after 24 years (also married).
Most seminaries have adopted far more restrictive "Rules of Life" in the last several years. Maybe candidates are so different now that these are needed - I don't know. I'm not sure that a seminary, even with three preparatory years before starting major theology, can "re-form" a guy who is 30 or 40 years old and has had some kind of career and lifestyle.
I never went to Seminary, although our parish priests begged me to but it would have been during the very worst of times following the Council. Although I loved the Church I obviously lacked a vocation.
A seminary should be neither a prison nor a halfway house. Reasonable and moderate rules should apply. High School seminaries should not be revived. The one religious order I am most familiar with retained, on average, 2-3 out of a 100 boys who moved on to Major Seminary. Young boys should be allowed to grow to young men before making the decision to enter a seminary.
Did they teach why the Church was wrong before Vatican II?
"I'm not sure that a seminary, even with three preparatory years before starting major theology, can "re-form" a guy who is 30 or 40 years old and has had some kind of career and lifestyle."
On the flip side, a guy that has been out and sustaining himself in the world yet wants to pursue a vocation will not likely want or need extreme reforming as they have more experience than they likely will be given credit for having.
"Maybe candidates are so different now that these are needed." Fr. AJM suggested this as well. Candidates that I've known come from very, very different experiences and backgrounds than what was formerly obligatory.
rcg
How else to propagate a new ideology than to drum into students that the former was wrong/bad?
1975/76 was barely 11 years after the Council although then it seemed like a lifetime to me. It was the new and improved; better enlightened, better knowledge of the early Church and getting back to our roots. Academic theologians had found out new information from our history that need to be recovered which means so much had to be pruned to get it right finally.
Getting it right? I guess If you count emptying churches, closing parishes and religious houses, falling belief in the Real Presence, etc
I think it should primarily be a place where prospective priests learn to experience God so that they then can teach others to experience God, and anything else on hold until they reach that spiritual landmark.
Otherwise, you often get vacuum cleaner salesmen who do not even use that brand of vacuum at home.
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