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CNS Special report:
Coverage of John Jay report, National Review Board study.
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-back to John Jay series main menu
Transmitted 03/12/2004 12:59 PM ET
Celibacy formation different in high school, college seminaries
By Jerry Filteau
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) -- High school seminaries seek to form students in chastity, while college seminaries work to form them for celibate chastity, said the rectors of two of those institutions.
At St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary, Wis., "we expect and encourage that our boys will date when they are home (during summer or other school breaks), under the supervision of their parents," said Capuchin Father Dennis Druggan, rector and president of the 150-year-old high school seminary.
In a telephone interview he said the boarding school's program aims at helping young men discern whether they are called to priesthood, married life or some other vocation. All vocations are presented and discussed, with no effort to pressure the students into any single one.
Father Thomas M. Dragga, president and rector of Borromeo Seminary in Wickliffe, Ohio, a Cleveland suburb, said celibacy formation is an integral part of the program of college seminaries like his.
There the weekly Sunday night rector's conference, in the context of night prayer, is usually devoted to "issues around priestly life, issues around celibacy, issues around boundaries, boundary violations, discernment, those kinds of things," he said.
"Once a month I would deal with those same issues in a more blunt way -- what we imagine celibacy to be, what we are called to as priests, why do we ask you as a college seminarian to not date in these years," he said.
Issues of celibacy, sexuality and vocation discernment are also addressed by the college seminarians' spiritual directors and formation adviser and through a number of structured programs during the school year, he said. These include three three-hour formation workshops each semester and a retreat-style spirituality weekend each semester during which the students are also divided into smaller discussion groups.
During their annual retreat in January, "one of the talks is always on celibacy," Father Dragga said.
Up to the 1960s, when high school seminaries were at their peak -- nearly 16,000 students nationwide in 1967-68, according to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate -- students were forbidden to date girls. The recently released report of the bishops' National Review Board on clergy sexual abuse of minors says the delayed psychosexual development of some seminarians from that era may have contributed to the sex abuse crisis, as priests in their late 20s emerged from 12 years of seminary with the psychosexual maturity of teenagers.
St. Lawrence, about 60 miles north of Milwaukee, is one of the few remaining high school seminaries in the country. With 207 students at the start of the current school year, it is the largest institution of its kind in the United States and teaches more than one-fourth of the 761 U.S. high school seminarians recorded in a forthcoming CARA survey of U.S. ministry formation programs in 2003-04.
Father Druggan, who is the high school seminary representative on the executive committee of the National Catholic Educational Association's Seminary Department, said the seminary runs "pretty much the same program" as other Catholic high schools in the Milwaukee Archdiocese in the areas of sexuality and chastity -- "a Christian and human approach to understanding our sexuality."
"Obviously we model the celibate lifestyle here and see that connected with priesthood and the vowed life," he said. "But I would say the discussion about that is pretty informal. Kids at this age are apt to ask questions like, 'Are you miserable and unhappy because you don't have children or a wife?' -- that kind of stuff. And we'll say, 'Do we look miserable and unhappy?' and then talk about the reasons we've chosen to be celibate people."
"Celibacy for some of the young men who would really like to consider priesthood is a stumbling block already," he added. "There is not a great appreciation of it by some. But at this level it's great, it's a time to look at their options. In our curriculum and our discussions we really encourage the guys to consider the vocational options that are there. One would be religious life or priesthood, one would be marriage, one would be committed single life. We talk about all that."
He said it would be accurate to describe today's high school seminaries as schools of formation for Christian leadership, whether in priesthood or in other life vocations.
There's a strong emphasis on liturgy and prayer life, with daily morning and evening prayer, often led by the students, he said. The seminary also has a full-time staff member overseeing the "ministry component" of appropriate high-school-level service to others, with "theological reflection about the work that they're involved in," he said.
"All of us are looking for people who have leadership potential," he said. "You know, a young man, a freshman, sophomore, junior who says, 'No way I would look at priesthood,' I would not welcome him into this school. In the same sense, if he came here and said, 'I would never look at a married vocation,' I wouldn't want to welcome him to the school here. At this young age, what's appropriate is that they begin a discerning mode, gathering information about the various options available to them."
The U.S. bishops' Program of Priestly Formation, which sets the norms and standards to be followed by U.S. seminaries at every level, calls for concrete, explicit celibacy formation at the college and theology levels but is much more general in its discussion of high school seminaries.
It says high school seminaries should nurture the seeds of a priestly vocation "by programs of spiritual and academic formation attuned to the needs of the adolescent."
"The value of chaste living should be presented to students in a positive light as an important element in an authentic Christian way of life," it says.
In its discussion of developing a student's social skills at the high school level, the program says, "Well-rounded adolescent development also includes wholesome, appropriate and chaste relationships with women, including young women their own age."
In its 150-year history St. Lawrence has had about 1,500 alumni who have become priests, Father Druggan said. He estimated that among alumni who could have reached ordination age in the last several years, about 3 percent to 5 percent became priests.
"I think a place like this is a good place for the discussion (about vocation options) to begin," he said. "There's not a lot of other organizations or institutions that are going to be talking about celibacy with young people. It's not that anything's being shoved at them or forced on them, but they get to see the options that are available to them."
For seminary students at the college level, the Program of Priestly Formation calls for a very different kind of approach.
"A clear focus on ordained priestly ministry assists the process of discernment proper to college students. ... The program of spiritual formation should carefully present the topic of celibacy in the context of the evangelical counsels," it says.
"It is important," it adds, "that programs of formation help students to appropriate a positive understanding of celibacy. ... It is equally important that the rector make clear to the seminary community the concrete expectations of celibate living and the kinds of behaviors which are wrong and inappropriate for college seminarians."
Father Dragga, who is the college seminaries representative on the executive committee of the NCEA Seminary Department, said the students at Borromeo have a strong introduction into formation and spiritual direction from the start.
In the first semester of their first year they are expected to meet every week with their formation adviser to discuss goals in spiritual life, community life, academics, celibacy, apostolic service and other areas, he said. After the first semester, they continue to meet with the formation adviser every three or four weeks.
In addition, he said, they meet at least monthly with their spiritual director.
"We hope for very open, honest conversation with them, and that develops over time," Father Dragga said.
He estimated that about 80 percent of his weekly talks with students "have something to do with celibacy, sexuality, relationships, family, discernment."
He said when he was in a college seminary in the 1970s, "we had probably the same kind of thing, but not as specific as we are today. I don't leave a lot of vague references. We get very specific in terms of dealing with issues around celibacy and sexuality."
At their peak in the 1960s, U.S. college seminaries enrolled more than 13,000 students. According to CARA's latest survey, that has dropped to 1,268 students in the current school year. That figure goes up to more than 1,400 if one includes former college graduates who have enrolled in college seminaries to begin their priesthood formation while completing undergraduate courses that are needed in order to enter graduate studies in theology.
END
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Copyright (c) 2004 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The CNS news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed, including but not limited to such means as framing or any other digital copying or distribution method, in whole or in part without the prior written authority of Catholic News Service.
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