Fr Giuseppe Forlai, 51, has been the spiritual director of the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary for 11 years. A former parish vicar, chaplain in penitentiary institutions and professor of religion, he holds a doctorate in Dogmatic Theology and teaches at the Claretianum Institute of Theology of Consecrated Life.
You can read the entire interview with him Here. But these are a couple of great sound bytes:
Rigidity is a signal of what?
«What is meant by rigidity? A priest who is clear in doctrine, who calls things by name, is not rigid, he is simply ‘ecclesial’, he transmits what he has received. Rigidity refers to the sphere of the will, to how I put into practice in life the truth that has been given to me. A canonist friend, Fr. Ottavio De Bertolis, gave a very nice example: he took a ruler and a tailor’s tape measure. Both instruments show centimetres, but the former is rigid, the latter measures according to the person’s shape. Manipulators are very clear usually, but they have no pedagogy: they tell you what to do, but not how to get to things. They are rulers, not tape measure; they show you the goal, not the way. Because they haven’t walked it either!»
Fr Joseph, in your spiritual talks you have come across cases of abuse and manipulation. The news of these last few months refers us to stories of macroscopic gravity. You write that the first thing is to prevent. So help us to understand: who is at risk of manipulation?
«Those most at risk are people who need a lot of affective confirmation and who are looking for someone to decide for them, perhaps by bringing in the divine will. They desire, that is, a paternal gaze on their life, which gives them permission to exist, which sends a double message to the soul: ‘You are important’ and ‘you don’t risk anything because I’ll take care of it’. The manipulative relationship, in fact, never gives autonomy. In those who come to the seminary, we have not found cases of people being physically abused, but spiritually yes, by priests or charismatic leaders, even lay people, who have instilled in young people the conviction that they have a vocation. Saying ‘God’s will for your life is this’ is generally a form of spiritual abuse. And of these cases, in eleven years, I have found quite a few, at a rough guess I would say two out of every ten. In the seminary these people were given responsibility, they were given the tools to discern, and they left on their own, as soon as they started to breathe. But there have also been more difficult situations: if you have experienced an unhealthy fatherhood, in which you have been convinced that God loves you only if you become a priest (and I am not exaggerating), when you realise that that is not your deepest desire, then everything collapses. They are often very young boys, very attached to a presbyter or animator figure who has not been able to measure his authority towards them».
Are these situations more frequent today or are you just more careful?
«One is more careful than one used to be. Specifically spiritual abuse is very frequent, today more so than yesterday, because spiritual direction has come back very much ‘in fashion’, thanks to a certain generalised disorientation. Before, people rightly sought the ordinary confessor, now the spiritual director, sometimes in a morbid manner. A surrogate father. We live in a society where people are not listened to, where there are no points of reference, but many fears and anxieties. Having an adult who in the name of God tells you what to do is a great comfort. The healthy effort of thinking and seeking the Truth is apparently spared. The improvised spiritual father does not give tools to discern, to listen to God’s word independently, to take responsibility in the Church, but he is the instrument. On the contrary, the shrewd one does not get in the way of the relationship between the subject and God, he simply verifies that the game has been played according to the rules of Christian life. To do this, one must have meditated and digested the doctrine of the great masters of the Spirit: Ignatius, Teresa, John of the Cross, Francis de Sales, to name but the best known. Some think they do not need to, relying only on what they ‘hear’ or ‘believe’: but in the Church, thank God, there is a very solid tradition on these issues. St Teresa of Avila was very clear about the doctrinal competence of the spiritual director. The attitude of self-proclaimed spiritual director, in the technical sense, is not only widespread among priests, but also in movements and ecclesial aggregations. Clericalism is also present among the laity. The urban legend that is spreading, whereby clericalism is eliminated by mortifying the clergy, is a dishonest naivety. It is worth remembering, however, that spiritual direction is a secondary, not primary means of Christian life: the Gospel and the sacraments are primary means, then there are the secondary ones, such as spiritual exercises and a particular devotion. The latter help greatly but are not essential for the sanctification of people.
One does not die without a spiritual director, it is much more important to learn to go to confession well and often».
1 comment:
He’ll be canned by Ming the Merciful
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