Father Z reminds us that it is a miracle we get any good priests at all considering what cesspools the seminaries were and are:
I have written quite a few times here that – in this time of erosion and reversal in the Church – young priests and seminarians will increasingly be exposed to the sort of thing we older guys had to endure in the bad old days of the 80’s and 90’s. Having grown up in relative sanity will they have the wherewithal to deal with the ascendency of the New catholic Red Guards in those places where lib bishops control the seminaries? It’s a concern.
Today, however, we have the greater threat of the rapidly expanding demographic sinkhole opening up under the Church into which the generation of seasoned-senior Catholics will disappear due to age and the subsequent generations of the un-contracepted and un-aborted indifferent immanentists will follow, no longer interested in keeping up the illusion of even cultural, familial Catholicism. The demographic sinkhole is gaping in an accelerated rate under the influence of the demonically-accursed Chinese virus, the Wuhan Devil.
I firmly believe that, in time, the groups that remain, because of their strong, hard-identity Catholicism, will find each other and form something dynamic. Traditionalists and charismatics and converts. There will be frictions. That’s okay.
Meanwhile, young men who are in seminaries are starting – in some places, at least, to experience the grinder of the a-spiritual, virtue-signal laden, ideology-driven humanistic rubbish that is in ascendance in this time of Francis, his papalotrous New catholic Red Guards, COVID, and globalism.
I read a piece at The American Conservative by Rod Dreher. He relates an anonymized letter from a seminarian who is being crushed in a seminary which is going full out crazy. It is a real cri de coeur. It echoes many of my worries which I expressed at the top, about the return of the bad old days.
A few quotes:
In the Church, truth and falsehood, good and evil have been replaced by liberal and conservative. I live in fear of being branded with the scarlet letter “C”. I have to weigh every word and action, and measure out the amount of hostility I attract to myself. All the while we hear constant rhetoric about diversity, inclusivity, and dialogue. They are the intolerant tolerant ones. All are welcome, but some are more welcome than others.
I feel like I am being gaslit by the psychologizing of religion. The implication is that sexual deviancy is caused by sexual repression. Those who advocate for obeying the commandments are blamed for people disobeying the commandments.
[…]
I feel like chastity is discouraged in my formation program. We aren’t allowed to talk about sexual morality anymore. I don’t trust the men around me. The sexual scandals of the future are going to become much worse than the sexual scandals of the past. I used to believe the Church as restoring herself after a dark period, but I no longer have that hope.
I am currently in seminary, and I don’t want to represent the Church publicly. I’m sitting through courses on the sacraments of initiation, and I don’t want to welcome people into the Church. I wanted to be Catholic, and I was naive enough to believe the Church would support me. I wouldn’t recommend the Church to anyone. If you hope to believe and practice the Catholic faith, you will be beaten down by the Church.
After recent weeks, of news about Pope Francis endorsing civil unions for gay couples, of
seminary professors regularly contradicting the doctrines of the faith, of great dejection about the moral corruption of the Church occasioned by the McCarrick Report, and of listening to priests repeating ad nauseum talking points from the liberal Catholic media, one evening something switched in my mind, in a different way: I have to leave.[…]
We have been so abused by the Church, sexually of course, but also spiritually, morally, liturgically, psychologically, etc. I’ve learned to survive by keeping my head down and my mouth shut. My heart is filled with resentment. I just wanted to be Catholic, but I am not welcome in the Church. The Church is not what she should be, and I hate what she is. My heart is filled with bitterness, and I don’t want to live like this anymore.
[…]
I get it.
On my first day of seminary in these USA, they made us name tulip bulbs and then plant them while the worship team chanted a mantra including “the bringer of light”. Most of the priest members of the “Growth in Life and Ministry” team, quit the priesthood. Members of the faculty died of AIDs. The vice-rector priest (who threw me out) shacked up with a female member of the faculty after “presiding” at the invalid “wedding” of David Haas and female faculty member. We were forbidden to use the word “priest”. A statue of Our Lady of Fatima got one of my classmates dismissed for an “excessive Marian devotion”. The history teacher was one of most incompetent people I’ve ever met. Homosexuality was rife in the rooms. They literally destroyed the spectacular chapel before our eyes, with jackhammers, reversed it’s entire orientation, and painted in colors more suitable to a bordello. In homiletics, the idiot teacher (who shacked up with the vice rector) wanted the men the crawl around on the floor and meow. When we objected to the absolutely unchewable, unswallowable “bread” they made for Eucharist, we were told but one of the theological brain-trusts that “the longer you chew, the more of a sacrament it is”. That was confusing because we were also told that “the sacrament takes place when you look into the eyes of the one who gifts it”. And, “when the ordained minister says the words of institution over bread and wine, no real change takes place: it becomes a symbol of the unity of the community gathered there in that moment.”
I could go on. And on.
And then came priesthood.
I could go on.
So, my first reaction to this young man’s struggles in seminary is. “Yup!”
It is also, “Yut!”, as in Marine “Yut!”
Seminary is rather like extended OCS or military academy. We conservative and traditional older priests are the survivors of 80’s and 90’s seminaries. We were in the academy of the enemy. If you can make it through, you will have been toughened by the experience and will have learned exactly how the enemy thinks, what there program is. Thus, the enemy trains their own destruction.
Does it take a toll? Of course it does. Does it leave scars? Damn right it does.
No one promised us at baptism that life in the Church was going to be easy. This world has its fell Prince, who hates us and the Church and who works relentlessly against her, from without and from within by his agents.
It should not be a surprise to any Catholic that there is chaos in the Church from time to time. It stands to reason that things will get rocky. This is a WAR, after all! War is messy. It is not a surprise that the attack will be fiercest on clergy and in seminaries. OF COURSE that’s where the Devil will attack the hardest!
Go here to read the rest. It will take many miracles to recover from this.
All of this is why we should expect the Great Chastisement soon. Catholic are being led into temptation by the devil. This began as the official program of the Catholic Church at Vatican II. Now we can see the poisonous fruit that resulted.
If this continues Catholic who wants to remain Catholic will have to leave in order to protect his own soul and those for whom he is responsible. For me I would join Bishop Sanborn’s sedevacantist parish in Brooksville, Fl. https://mostholytrinityseminary.org/
I was in a Permanent Diaconate program at one point. On a couple occasions we received very good teaching. All the rest was pure Left thought. Social Justice was the first course taught and from a very progressive perspective. The person teaching said that if we weren’t Democrats before the course we would be after. Even the course on the Sacraments was taught from a “Social Justice” perspective. The course on the Old Testament was just a bunch of random thoughts. The only absolute that was taught during that course was that Fundamentalism was wrong. The deacon in charge of the program during one course “proved” from Catholic social teaching that one could vote for Obama. (This deacon subsequently was laicized so he could remarry after his wife’s death. Being a celibate social justice warrior did not appeal to him I guess.)
I left not because of all of this as I did not think it was my vocation. Some kept their heads and finished with their Faith intact. Most became Progressive missionaries.
With the secular world falling apart, due in no small part to rampant secular humanism, one would think the Churches would be thriving as a response, yet they are empty monuments to a thriving past, because the Church stays so ritually silent on salvation, sin and suffering. Who needs, what far too often “appears” to be but part of the same failed worldly political answers to fallen man’s condition that is coming out of Rome and our earthly-centered Shepherds?
No clue what’s up with the seminaries right now. Fr. Joseph Wilson claimed that the visitation John Paul ordered in 1981 was a sham. Can’t help but notice that in Syracuse there were almost no accused priests who were ordained after 1987.
I’d be very chary of taking anything Dreher says at face value. “A friend writes” is a rhetorical device. The ‘friend’ is always a supposed insider who is makes all the points Dreher has flogged of late. I’d put a three-figure sum on the proposition that Dreher’s editors have never audited these columns and demanded printed copies of any of the correspondence between Dreher and his ‘friends’.
While I believe things are better in many seminaries, you can’t deny the voluminous reports of what took place in the 80’s and 90’s. Literally, you couldn’t make those stories up. All of it occurring while JPII was pope. Too bad he didn’t take that wise counsel from his friend Ronald Reagan and understand that personnel is policy. Or, maybe he did. Either way, the conclusions are not good.
Yeah. Too Bad. And what happened with Reagan?
The bad actors went to ground until it was safe to come back out again. There will always be bad actors. They’re like The Poor that way.
I’d be very chary of taking anything Dreher says at face value. “A friend writes” is a rhetorical device. The ‘friend’ is always a supposed insider who is makes all the points Dreher has flogged of late. I’d put a three-figure sum on the proposition that Dreher’s editors have never audited these columns and demanded printed copies of any of the correspondence between Dreher and his ‘friends’.
There’s a false note in the way his correspondent talks about “the Church.”
I agree with Art Deco. The “letter” does seem to be too perfectly suited to Mr. Dreher’s favorite talking points and his need to justify his defection to Orthodoxy.
Don’t get me wrong, there are horrible seminaries, and I’ve seen a few, but there are also good seminaries and often their bishops welcome extra-diocesan candidates. If your diocese’s seminary is CINO, by all means go to another one. Vote with your feet.
While I believe things are better in many seminaries, you can’t deny the voluminous reports of what took place in the 80’s and 90’s. Literally, you couldn’t make those stories up. All of it occurring while JPII was pope. Too bad he didn’t take that wise counsel from his friend Ronald Reagan and understand that personnel is policy.
There are about 3,000 bishops worldwide. The Holy See, IIRC, employs about 4,000 people top to bottom. The Pope doesn’t have the manpower to be your bishop. There might have been the authority under canon law to consolidate diocesan seminaries and formation houses among the orders so that the residue might be more carefully monitored. Leon Podles, among his many dubious claims, insisted that Rome was the problem. That might be true if superordinate tribunals were interfering in efforts to impose discipline on clergy, but it’s hard to believe they ever heard that many cases.
I’d agree with you that personnel is policy, but the level of the Holy See’s involvement would be in making sure those who make up the filters for the Congregation of Bishops are kosher. I think that would be the nunciature and the metropolitans. I think about 20% of the ordinaries in the U.S. are metropolitans, so that’s hundreds of bishops worldwide. And they make mistakes and have lousy pools from which to choose.
Phillip, I also was in “a Permanent Diaconate program at one point”. There weren’t any others in the program who promoted NFP and were contra-contraception in the program. My wife and I having four children and my being “a fundamentalist” helped with my being told not to proceed. I always thought being a married man and ordained would give a Deacon a certain weight on preaching Humanae Vitae, to this day I have not heard a deacon speak on it. And a friend who made it through the program said “he hid” his orthodoxy to the point of ordination. If only I would have lied my way through? Too much to ask. I don’t know how to lie that well.
If your diocese’s seminary is CINO, by all means go to another one. Vote with your feet.
From the little bit I know, I’m fairly certain it doesn’t work that way, especially for a young man discerning a vocation out of high school. If one really wanted to vote with one’s feet, one would, after much research, have to join a different diocese. That may or may not raise flags in the pre-screening process. And even if it doesn’t, there’s no guarantee one wouldn’t be sent a different seminary elsewhere.
Ernst Schreiber,
I am only familiar with the seminaries of a few countries in Europe and Latin America and cannot talk about the policies in the USA, but in the countries I know there are many, many seminarians who enter seminary in dioceses that are not theirs. It happens often, because there is nothing in Canon Law against it, and bishops are free to accept whoever they want.
Apart from that, you cannot “be sent” to a different seminary elsewhere, if we are talking about diocesan seminaries (as opposed to religious-life novitiates). Bishops have no authority outside their diocese and cannot send you elsewhere.
As to raising flags, I don’t think that would happen, unless you’ve been rejected by another seminary. When that is the case, bishops do tend to think twice about accepting a candidate.
I can’t speak to the veracity of Rod’s correspondent, but it does fit into the sweet spot of Rod’s defection–and I say that as someone who still reads him. There is no doubt that the progs are in ascendancy, and I can’t imagine that Mundelein is going to be worth a tinker’s cuss after another ten years of being Cupiched.
But Fr. Z’s point about the “demographic sinkhole” is the signal flare of his piece. The Francis bishops are nothing if not decline managers, and the branches are cracking under their–and our–feet. Wister and McElroy probably have more time due to the Hispanic population, but if you’re north of a line of North Carolina/Tennessee/Arkansas/Oklahoma and east of the Rockies, the collapse is entering the accelerated spiral phase. You can count on half the parishes in those areas to close and probably some diocese being disestablished (I can think of two in Michigan that have bleak futures). Not that the pontiff and his stacked-conclave likely-successor will give a rat’s arse–the cult of Vatican Too will push the rope of aggiornamento forever.
So, yes, you’ll have pockets of trads/charismatics/some steely conservatives who survive, but if the bad guys have institutional control, then how will any of them get ordained?
Bruno,
In the U.S., not every diocese has a seminary, so seminarians get sent elsewhere. My only point was it’s not as easy as “voting” with your feet, because ultimately, you’re not the one who decides where you’re going for your “priestly formation” (as they call it in the U.S.), your Bishop and whatever person or persons manage Vocations for the Bishop decide that for you.
I can’t speak to the veracity of Rod’s correspondent, but it does fit into the sweet spot of Rod’s defection–and I say that as someone who still reads him.
1) He’s either a figment of Rod’s imagination or
2) Rod has so filtered him through his imagination that he might as well be or
3) The guy is so poorly formed that he probably doesn’t have a genuine vocation to the Priesthood, and it’s just as well he’s thinking about leaving.
If it’s three, it’s a pity the filters in place don’t do the same job on weeding out the liberals without a genuine vocation as they do the conservatives. But I suppose that has to do with who’s tending the garden.
Ernst,
“In the U.S., not every diocese has a seminary, so seminarians get sent elsewhere.”
That’s the same everywhere these days. I was advising to choose a diocese that either has a good seminary or has a good bishop who will send his seminarians to a good training center, which amounts to the same thing (if I remember correctly, the seminary is still the diocese’s own, even if there is no physical diocesan training center and the students have to physically go to a training center elsewhere).
It can be done (and, I dare say, in many cases it should be done), but, as you mentioned, it’s not necessarily easy. Ideally, all seminaries should be good and Catholic, so young men could serve their own diocese, but, unfortunately, that’s not always the case nowadays, so extraordinary measures should sometimes be taken.
In Spain, for example, for decades after the seventies, one of the seminaries with the highest number of students was the seminary of Toledo, a very small diocese, because people knew it was really Catholic, so many young men fled there (and sometimes even returned to their original dioceses afterwards, as priests or bishops). Of course, the bishops of the other dioceses loathed Toledo’s seminary, but it gave us many of the best priests and bishops we have today.
In the U.S., not every diocese has a seminary, so seminarians get sent elsewhere. My only point was it’s not as easy as “voting” with your feet, because ultimately, you’re not the one who decides where you’re going for your “priestly formation” (as they call it in the U.S.), your Bishop and whatever person or persons manage Vocations for the Bishop decide that for you.
Remember Rudy Kos? His estranged wife had pleaded with diocesan officials to not admit him to seminary (“I divorced him because he likes boys”). He was admitted to seminary after having previously been rejected. The seminary had a file on him with a note from the rector at the time saying he should not be admitted. On his second application, he was admitted. IIRC, the seminary rector who admitted him was Michael Sheehan, later Archbishop of Santa Fe. NB, this creature
https://hds.harvard.edu/topic-tags/mark-jordan
had a stint on the faculty of that seminary around that time.
Vocations directors can be right accommodating when they choose to be.
My parish priest once commented that one of his seminary teachers told him “you’d be the perfect priest, except you make the mistake of actually believing the catechism.”
I always viewed American catholicism as “vanilla” catholicism but this is just radical leftists BS! I used to go church in Thailand, hence my moniker. And it is waaay different compared to the church I go to today in the US. In Thailand (I left a month before COVID struck/lockdowns), there are many priests here. They have a whole college dedicated for them, sometimes known as the Thai Vatican. The churches here, old and new are exceptionally beautiful. Some take Thai aesthetics and some use European styles.
Compared to my church in the US, which just looks like a box with a bell tower thats never rung. Our pews are around the altar and above it as a cross (not crucifix) with a fire symbol swirling around. The crucifix is to the side of the church. Confessions are 30 minutes before mass, if you can find the priest and face to face in the corner of the church. We use Eucharistic ministers during mass. Theres only adoration usually around Holy Thursday. No incense or sprinkling of holy water during mass.
For Thai churches, they have side chapels for different saints and places for votive candles! Confessions are held throughout sundays and saturdays. One priest even got me to have a greater devotion to Mary and I even enrolled into the Marian Confraternity. There are weekly devotions such as the novena of perpetual help, first saturdays and first fridays. The rosary is recited 30 minutes before each mass. Even during Mass its way different, there’s more respect. The profession of faith is said like during baptisms. Do you believe in God? I do. Do you believe…? I do. After the Penitence, the priest walks around sprinkling holy water on the parishioners. During the Eucharistic prayers, the priest chants the prayer rather than quickly saying it. We kneel during the Eucharistic prayer, not stand unlike the US. Since there are many priests, the church uses other priests to distribute communion. Even during the Christmas mass, its way different and more reverential. The lights are out, the priest walks towards the alter with incense in hand and then the lights are turned on and singing starts.
I really do miss masses in Thailand. Interestingly a few churches there decided to hold masses during the lockdown in contrivance against lockdown laws there!