The people’s priests
The scourge of clericalism
Rome’s seminaries are changing – but can those training for the priesthood stay close to the people they will serve while living apart from the secular world?
When more than 450 bishops, theologians and consultors from around the world gathered in Rome last October for the Synod on Synodality, one of the topics that found broadest support was the need for a radical reform in the way that men are prepared for the priesthood. The “interim synthesis” document produced by that first synod assembly (there will be another this October) puts it like this: “Formation should not create an artificial environment separate from the ordinary life of the faithful.”
It’s a restrained, fairly modest statement, but it hints at a deeper concern. Several synod participants told me that the passage (which was approved by 336 votes to 10) was inspired by worries about the “rigid”, “clericalist” mindset of a growing number of seminarians and young priests. Pope Francis shares these concerns – in fact, he dedicated one of his few synod speeches to the topic. “Clericalism is a scourge,” he said. “It is a blow. It is a form of worldliness that defiles and damages the face of the Lord’s bride; it enslaves the holy, faithful People of God.”
According to the synod members I spoke to (whose views, of course, were not shared by every participant), much of the blame for this problem lies with “artificial” formation environments. These place a wall between seminarians and ordinary believers, contributing to an aloof, “clericalist” mindset among some of the clergy.
Is this true? I set out to speak to formators and students at seminaries across Rome, and asked them what they think of the synod’s call for a rethink of priestly education.
Rome is bursting with seminaries, formation houses and church-run academic institutes. In the centre, where many of these institutions are based, you can hardly walk down the street without bumping into a seminarian. (Although they’re not the subject of this article, you see plenty of religious sisters in formation, too.) Some seminaries offer teaching on-site, but many send their students to one of the numerous pontifical – that is, Vatican-run – universities scattered around the city. The largest of these, such as the Jesuit-run Gregorian University, which dominates a large piazza near the Trevi Fountain, offer a comprehensive range of degrees, from philosophy and theology to the social sciences. Others, such as the Pontifical Institute for Arabic and Islamic Studies, or the Augustinian Patristic Institute, are smaller and more specialised.
As I navigated my way through these various institutions, speaking to students and staff, it soon became clear that – at least in principle – nobody disagrees that seminarians should maintain contact with the outside world. Those involved in formation distinguish between the human, pastoral, spiritual and academic aspects of preparation for the priesthood, and acknowledge that the first two must involve some degree of contact with external realities. The devil, as usual, is in the detail – exactly how much should seminarians interact with the outside world?
My first call was to Fr Thomas Joseph White OP, the first American to be appointed rector of the Dominican-run Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas. Known around the city as the “Angelicum”, after the “Angelic Doctor”, it sits perched atop a small hill a stone’s throw from the Roman Forum. Fr White acknowledged the importance of human formation, and agreed with the synod that this is “often developed best in a pastoral setting, working with those on the margins of society”. In order to do this work constructively, however, Fr White told me seminarians must first develop a “deep Christian identity”, a task that “cannot be accomplished by playing video games and watching Netflix”. Future priests, he told me, must be “protected from the ordinary, secular world”.
When I visited the Pontifical Beda College, run by the bishops of England and Wales and offering formation to older candidates for the priesthood from around the English-speaking world (students are normally at least 30 years old), I heard something similar. Sr Patricia McDonald, who teaches Scripture there, said that the seminary environment “has to be artificial – otherwise, the students won’t change”. This is particularly the case at the Beda, she suggested, given that its students are not joining straight out of secondary school. “They’ve already done the being-in-the-world thing; they come here to learn how to be priests.”
Students at the Beda are not required to learn any Italian beyond the basics, and are not asked – as some others are – to volunteer in the local community. They do, however, place a great emphasis on hospitality, as the rector, Canon Philip Gillespie, emphasised when we met for lunch. It wasn’t hard to believe him – I sometimes had to lean across the table to catch what he was saying over the noise of the 20 or so US high-school students who were visiting.
A degree of separation from the outside world does not necessarily mean a retreat into isolation. It often goes hand in hand with a heavy emphasis on internal community-building. As he described the activities that make up the typical Dominican seminary experience, Fr White placed the adjectives “common” or “shared” before each: “common prayer”, “a common life of study”, “a shared fraternal life” and “common apostolic work”. In an age of increasing social fragmentation, this can be an attractive proposal.
For many of the seminarians I spoke to, particularly those who had joined religious orders, it had been one of the main factors behind their decision to train for the priesthood. In some parts of the world, the community dimension takes on an added importance. A young Nigerian priest told me that seminaries in his country offered a vital opportunity for bringing together young men from “different tribes, cultures and traditions”. “In many ways,” he said, “it’s the place where peace-building starts.”
There are seminaries that offer programmes for priestly formation that place heavy emphasis on interaction with the laity. One is the Community of Sant’Egidio, a Rome-based, lay-led movement founded in 1968 now present in more than 70 countries around the world. When they arrive in Rome for studies, the movement’s seminarians spend two years living with a local family to learn the language and culture. (All the foreign Sant’Egidio priests I met in Rome spoke excellent Italian, something that certainly cannot be said of all non-native clerics.) After that, they move into the Sant’Egidio seminary, but maintain close contact with laypeople – “the seminary is basically just a place to sleep and eat,” one of them told me.
All seminarians are required to volunteer regularly, with the homeless or the elderly or disadvantaged children. One recently ordained priest I spoke to works as a nurse in a Sant’Egidio-run retirement home several evenings a week. “I arrived in Rome when I was still in my teens,” he said, “so I feel like I really grew up together with the lay community here. I can’t imagine being a priest any other way.”
It’s not only members of Sant’Egidio that have reservations about the traditional model of seminary formation. Alberto Estrada, a seminarian from the Mexican Diocese of Monterrey studying with Opus Dei in Rome, told me that “living here in isolation, we can lose contact with the reality of people’s lives. Because we have somewhere to live and food every day, we can forget those who have nothing.”
The majority of dioceses and religious orders are not insensitive to similar concerns. Seminarians are usually sent off for pastoral placements during the summer, normally in parishes in their countries of origin. Sometimes – this was the case, for instance, for Alberto Estrada – there are placements at Christmas and Easter too.
Many seminaries also require students to be active in the local community during their time in Rome. When I visited the Venerable English College, which is tucked away on one of the quieter streets in the city centre, I learnt that it has hired an extra member of staff to help coordinate pastoral placements across the city. Once upon a time, its students’ main pastoral activity was spending time with those who attend the seminary’s English-language Masses. They’re now volunteering in prisons, hospitals and schools around Rome.
Fr Stephen Wang, the college’s rector, told me that the impetus for these changes came not just from bishops and the formation team, but also from the students themselves. “There’s a real hunger,” he said, “to connect with the world, families and parishes, both here in Italy and back home.”
This includes spending time with both men and women. Marta Rodríguez Díaz, a consecrated laywoman belonging to the Regnum Christi Federation, has been working with seminarians for many years. “I think it’s important that there are women in seminaries,” she told me. “Our identities are formed in the encounter with otherness: masculinity needs the encounter with femininity in order to be able to grow and develop.” When she first began working in seminaries, Rodríguez Díaz was often the first woman to have done so at any given institution. Increasingly, however, she finds that formators – and students – are recognising the importance of the work she does. The Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, a 2016 Vatican document providing guidelines for priestly formation, notes several times the importance of including women in the process. Rome’s seminaries are not the male bastions they once were – each of those I visited had at least one female staff member.
Many seminaries, Sr Patricia McDonald told me, would like to do more in this regard. A major limiting factor, however, is money – it’s far easier to employ a priest or Religious to work with seminarians than a layperson with a family to support.
When thinking about ways to restructure the seminary experience, how do we assess these contrasting models and philosophies? It’s tempting to look at the numbers. And the seminaries run on traditional lines – those which most emphasise detachment from the world – have the highest number of applicants. But let me suggest an alternative way of approaching the debate about seminary formation. Given that the relationship between priests and laypeople is at the centre of much of the discussion, a good starting point might be the concept of the common priesthood of all believers – the Church’s conviction that all Christians, by virtue of their baptism, share in Christ’s priestly ministry. The Catechism says that the ministerial, ordained priesthood is “at the service” of this common priesthood (CCC, 1547). The same section says that the ordained priesthood is “a means by which Christ unceasingly builds up and leads his Church”.
We’re used to the idea that priests are there to serve laypeople (even if, realistically, it doesn’t always happen in practice). But we are less familiar with the idea that their priesthood is a “means” for the promotion of our own. What, concretely, does that mean? What tangible changes does it entail for the way ordained priests serve the laity? Questions like this were discussed by the synod participants in October, though they did not make it into the final synthesis document. When participants meet again next October, they might be worth putting back on the table.
Joseph Tulloch is a writer and journalist based in Rome.
No comments:
Post a Comment