"Cuba Has a New Catholic Seminary"

From the HAVANA TIMES

March 2 — The new San Carlos y San Ambrosio Seminary was inaugurated barely four months ago. There are few photos of it, perhaps because it is so out of the way on the outskirts of the city. In any case, this report provides photos of the interior and external of the facility, as well as information related to the institution.

The seminary was inaugurated on November 3, 2010. Its construction was carried out on land controlled by the Archdiocese of Havana, about 10 miles to the southeast of the city. According to a statement by Cardinal Jaime Ortega Alamino during the inauguration, this will be “an appropriate space for prayer, study and silence on the part of those who are preparing for the priesthood in Cuba.”

The historic site of the school, situated in the tourist center of Old Havana, didn’t provide the conditions of isolation necessary for this type of facility. In addition, according to one seminarian, the students lived in overcrowded conditions at the old seminary.

The current building area is close to 6,000 square meters, with a capacity to house 100 seminarians. The building presently serves 44 of the 66 students who are studying in the entire country today. In the San Basilio Magno Seminary, in Santiago de Cuba reside 17 students, and another five in the Propedeutico at the Archdiocese of Camaguey.

The design includes a main building with an entrance way, a lobby, a reception hall, a main classroom, several smaller classrooms, a library, an infirmary and offices. The chapel occupies a central focus in the architectural concept.

There are four buildings for theology and four for philosophy, along with classrooms and bedrooms on the lower level and bedrooms in the upper level. For the philosophy seminarians (those in their first four years at the seminary) individual rooms were built, with a bathroom serving each two rooms. The theology seminarians (those in the last four years) will have individual rooms, each with their own bathroom.

There exists a services building with a basement and two upper floors. Located there is the dining room, recreation areas and the dormitory for beginning seminarians. To this was added the construction of 10 rooms for teachers, and a residence for nuns (this is already occupied by Franciscan Sisters of San Jorge, who assist with the operation of the seminary).

The buildings are connected to each other to prevent rain from bothering people when moving between them. Still under construction is the sports area, which will have two ball courts. In the meantime the seminarians have set up their own rudimentary gym. There exits a plan to build a swimming pool, though this is on hold due to budgetary limitations.

Areas are being prepared with fruit-bearing trees and a vegetable garden, as well as for the breeding of farmyard birds, pigs and other animals for consumption by the seminarians, teachers and service personnel.

From 2009 to 2010, the number of seminarians in the whole country increased by 16.2 percent. It’s interesting to know that 98 percent of the students are Catholic converts, meaning that they don’t come from families with extensive religious backgrounds.

In the past decade, the number of ordinations was barely 6.2 percent of the initial enrollment in seminaries of the country. The statistic is below the average at the world level, where perseverance stands at 10 percent.

The 2004-2005 school year experienced the greatest enrollment at San Carlos, with 104 students; while the smallest figure corresponds to the current class, with only 44 youths. This implies a rate of one seminarian for each 250,000 Catholics in the Archdiocese of Havana.

A substantial advantage of the new school is that seminarians will be able to obtain the official degree of Bachelors of Theology because the new center is affiliated with the Gregorian University of Rome.

New president/rector named for Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, Ohio

From the Catholic Telegraph

Archbishop Dennis M. Schnurr has appointed Father Benedict O’Cinnsealaigh the 35th president/rector of the Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary.

The new appointment, announced Feb. 14, takes effect July 1.

The archbishop also created the position of vice rector and appointed Father Anthony R. Brausch, an instructor of philosophy, to fill the post.

Archbishop Schnurr said he is asking Father O’Cinnsealaigh “to give special attention to recruiting more dioceses to send their seminarians here, while continuing the spiritual, human and liturgical formation of our seminarians and growing the Athenaeum’s role in the diocese as a center of education and training both for the work of the lay ecclesial ministry and for outreach and evangelization to teachers and families.”

“I want to reiterate my commitment to Mount St. Mary’s and the Athenaeum, and to the stated goal of this institution to become one of the premier institutions in the church in the United States for the education and formation of priests and laity,” he added.

Since 2004, Father O’Cinnsealaigh has served as director of seminary formation at the Athenaeum of Ohio’s Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, which is the third-oldest Catholic seminary in the United States.

Achbishop Schnurr thanked outgoing president/rector Father Edward P. Smith for his almost seven years of service, citing many accomplishments during his tenure at the helm of the Athenaeum and its seminary.

“I feel very fortunate to have served at Mount St. Mary’s with Father Smith for the last 11 years,” said Father O’Cinnsealaigh. “He has been very effective in his ministry here and has been a kind and insightful mentor. I hope I can build on his work as he has built on the good work of those who went before him.”

During Father Smith’s watch, the Athenaeum conducted the most successful capital campaign in its 181-year history, recently raising more than $19 million — some 21 percent above the goal of $15.75 million.

Father Smith never left the classroom during his tenure, continuing to teach seminarians, deacons and lay ministers.

Archbishop Schnurr noted that the final phase of the expansion of seminarian housing from 46 to 70 suites came under Father Smith’s leadership and positions Mount St. Mary’s Seminary for future growth at a time when vocations to the Catholic priesthood are critically needed.

“The Athenaeum of Ohio/Mount St. Mary’s Seminary has given me so much. For 15 years of my life — four as a seminarian and 11 on the faculty — I have lived and worked with many wonderful people,” Father Smith said. “My vocation was formed here, and in the past years it has been strengthened by the zeal and commitment of our current students and faculty. . . . My life, my vocation, and my ministry are better for having been here.”

Father O’Cinnsealaigh, 47, is a native of Dublin, Ireland, who was ordained to the priesthood in 1993, the same year he came to the United States. He holds a degree in humanities from All Hallows College, Dublin; a bachelor’s degree in sacred theology from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas, Rome; and a licentiate in sacred theology and a doctorate in sacred theology from the International Marian Research Institute, Dayton.

Prior to being assigned to the Athenaeum in 2000, Father O’Cinnsealaigh was assistant pastor of Holy Angels Parish, Sidney, while also serving as head of the religion department and campus minister at Lehman Catholic High School. He earlier served as assistant pastor at St. Albert the Great Parish, Kettering.

He became a U.S. citizen in 2004, the same year he was named “Teacher of the Year” at the seminary. In addition to his role as director of seminary formation, he also has served as director of permanent diaconate formation and as assistant professor of theology since 2000. He holds the recently created Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk Chair in Systematic Theology.

“I feel somewhat anxious about taking on this new ministry, but being surrounded by so many good, faithful, and competent collaborators is encouraging and also exciting. The archbishop has a dynamic vision for the Athenaeum and the seminary, and the next few years should prove to be exciting and hopefully fruitful for the church,” Father O’Cinnsealaigh said.

A Priestly Vocation - Life at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary

A Priestly Vocation ~ Life at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary from Father Joseph Lee, FSSP.

N.C. Prep School has third alumnus accepted as seminarian

From the St. Thomas More Academy website:

Photos at left: Jonathon Baggett (far left), Michael Schuetz.



Raleigh, NC, July 2, 2010 / St. Thomas More Academy (STMA) congratulates John Kane (Class of ‘07) on being accepted as a seminarian for the Diocese of Raleigh. He joins fellow alumni Jonathon Baggett (‘07) and Michael Schuetz (‘08) as the third graduate from STMA in formation for the Diocesan Priesthood at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia.

Kane began discerning his vocation while at STMA and continued to discern during subsequent years at Belmont Abbey College, near Charlotte. He related that it was friends at STMA who helped him grow in his faith and begin to take it much more seriously. He said that the faculty provided a solid Catholic environment where he was able to begin discerning the call to become a priest.

Jonathon Baggett, STMA’s first seminarian, when asked about the role St. Thomas More Academy played in his formation and discernment of a vocation, had the following to say: “St. Thomas More Academy was a major contributor to my discernment. It was the only place outside of youth group where I knew peers who were excited about Catholicism. These experiences solidified for me the reality of our faith and inspired me to want to live that faith out radically.”

Baggett added “STMA also prepared me academically for my studies at the seminary. Having studied philosophy and Latin really put me ahead of the learning curve at St. Charles Borromeo.”
Michael Schuetz related: “My time at STMA gave me the opportunity to grow in my faith and to realize that it was ‘cool’ to be Catholic. This open Catholic environment allowed me to explore my faith and enabled me to begin my discernment. I know that no matter where God is ultimately calling me in life, the time I spent at STMA helped me to grow and mature, giving me the beginning formation that would, God Willing, help me become a man of God.”

Schuetz continued, “Looking back at my education at STMA I realized that my teachers’ main goal was to prepare me for college. The education I received in high school gives me comfort in college, because I had previously seen these materials and I knew something about the subjects we are covering.”

Of the sixty-five graduates of St. Thomas More Academy, three alumni, roughly 10% of the male graduates, are now studying for the priesthood – a remarkable percentage for any institution in the Church today.

We are extremely proud of all our graduates, and very pleased to count these three fine young men among them. They have said “Yes!” to Our Lord’s call and have offered their lives in service to the People of God in the Diocese of Raleigh. In doing so, they stand as wonderful examples of generous and faithful individuals, attributes that STMA students and alumni have come to embody.

Please continue to pray for these young men and for the other young men and women from STMA who are in the discernment process. AMDG+

"More than 1,300 teens studying in minor seminaries in Spain"

From the Catholic News Agency

Madrid, Spain, Jul 19, 2010 / 06:03 pm (CNA).- The Spanish daily La Razon reported this week that more than 1,300 teens between the ages of 12 and 18 are currently pursing a call to the priesthood by studying at the 53 diocesan minor seminaries that exist in the country.

An article written by Alex Navajas revealed that while “some kids at that age dream about being soccer players, business leaders, doctors or bullfighters,” others, “as soon as they enter adolescence, want to become priests.”

Such is the case with Alvaro Pinero, a 16-year-old from Toledo, who entered the minor seminary school in Madrid in 2006. He discovered his vocation at the age of 12 but felt unsure. “The school helped me a lot. It’s a great environment where we have good friendships and my classmates feel like they are my second family,” he said.

Another student, Adrian, felt the call to the priesthood at the age of five as an altar boy in his hometown of Monturque. At the age of 12 he entered the seminary of San Pelegio, and now at age 16 he says of the seminary, “Our ideal is Christ. Prayer is part of our formation, because without it we can do nothing. Our spiritual retreats are times of more intense prayer in order know and love Christ more.”

Santiago Fernandez, 18, has been in the minor seminary for two years and in September he will graduate to major seminary. “At first, my friends reacted very negatively. Then, when they saw how well I was doing, they began to support me,” he recalled.

Bishop Demetrio Fernandez of Cordoba also discovered his vocation at an early age and attended minor seminary. “I wanted to be a priest since I was seven,” he said. “I was an altar boy and I told my pastor, who was a key part of my vocation.” He said the years at minor seminary “were the happiest of my life. I only have positive things to say about minor seminaries,” Bishop Fernandez added.

Bishop Fernandez is one among many Spanish bishops who attended minor seminary, including the Archbishop of Toledo and the Bishop of Jaen. According to Antonio Prieto, the rector of the minor seminary of Cordoba, “more than 60 percent of the clergy of our diocese has passed through these halls.”

Interesting...

In recent days, articles have appeared in media outlets that are not typically known for their strong support of the Magisterium of the Catholic Church and orthodox vocations to the priesthood. Below are two...

From the New York Times: "Prospective Priests Face Sexuality Hurdles"

From America Magazine: "Weeding Out Gays from the Seminary"

Concerted effort?

"Australia: Significant increase in ordination of Catholic priests"

From Spero News

Six new priests ordained in Sydney and others ordained in Melbourne in 2010; a significant increase in seminarians throughout the country... These are the figures that make up the "miracle that occurred in the Year for Priests," says Fr. Brendan Lane, Rector of Corpus Christi Seminary in Melbourne, noting that the phenomenon goes against the trend of decline in vocations and priestly ordinations in recent years. "Twenty years ago, we may have thought we were headed into extinction," he said, but now the prospects are quite different.

The Australian Church is experiencing this moment of joy that offers new hope for the future. The Catholic community in Sydney is preparing for the ordination ceremony for six new priests, which will coincide with the closing of the Year for Priests, Friday, June 11 at Saint Mary's Cathedral, presided by Cardinal George Pell. The Archdiocese also has 63 seminarians, a significant increase considering that in 2000 there were only 17.

Six new priests will be ordained in Melbourne, home to more than 50 seminarians from the states of Victoria and Tasmania. In Brisbane, where a new seminary was built in 2008, the number of seminarians has doubled in two years, from 16 to 32 today. The same phenomenon is noted in the Seminary of Wagga Wagga (which houses 20 students) and in the two existing seminaries in Perth (with around 40 students).

The figures show great hope for the future of the Church. "Confronted by a postmodern world lacking in beliefs and values, many young people are seeking something solid and I would like to think they find it in the Catholic faith," said the rector of Sydney's Good Shepherd seminary, Father Anthony Percy. "I also think Pope John Paul II and the World Youth Days inspired this generation," he said.

"Higher Calling Leads Cartwright From Georgetown"

From CollegeSwimming.com

Georgetown University Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Lee Reed announced today that Men's & Women's Swimming and Diving Head Coach Steve Cartwright will step down from his position at the end of June.

Cartwright is resigning and returning to the seminary in the fall at St. Charles Borromeo in Philadelphia, Pa., studying for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, N.C.

"I am very happy for Steve and we wish him the very best as he pursues something that is very close to his heart," Reed said. "This decision was a very difficult one, but Steve has done a great job with our program here and he leaves it in great shape."

Cartwright has coached at Georgetown for six years, serving as the head coach of the program for the last three. He had previously served as the interim head coach since December 2006. He had been an assistant coach for the prior two-plus seasons.

During Cartwright's tenure at Georgetown, the Hoyas experienced tremendous success both in the pool and in the classroom. Since his arrival on the Hilltop, 34 school records have been broken and more than 50 percent of the times listed in the all-time top-10 list were recorded. The Collegiate Swimming Association of America has awarded academic All-American honors to team members for 36consecutive semesters. In addition, they named the Hoyas one of the top All-Academic Teams in the nation for the spring semester of 2006, the same semester the women's team recorded the highest grade-point average in the nation. For the spring semester of 2007, the men's team had the highest GPA of all Division I swimming and diving programs in the country.

This year, the women's team went 10-2, posting the best dual-meet record in school history and broke nine school records. The men's team broke five school records and placed seven swimmers in the top-16 in their individual events at the BIG EAST Championship.

A search for a successor to lead the program will begin immediately.

"Seminaries see no 'hard times' uptick"

From time to time I try to post articles that give a perspective on how other denominations and seminaries are doing with regard to vocations/enrollment. With the frequent call by some within the Church to allow married priests, or change the Church's understanding of the priesthood and allow women to be ordained, it is interesting to see that those denominations with married men and women as ministers are experiencing a decline in vocations.

Seminaries see no "hard times" uptick
From The Christian Century
by John Dart

The notion that enrollments at theological schools rise in tough economic times did not hold true for Protestant and Catholic seminaries in North America this academic year. In fact, over the past three years, the total student population slipped about 6 percent—down to 75,500 from a three-year plateau in mid-decade when more than 80,000 students were studying theology.

"The idea of going back to school seems to have worked for U.S. education in general," said Daniel Aleshire, executive director of the Association of Theological Schools, but not for seminaries, whose enrollment slid again in the past year about 2 percent, according to ATS data released in April.

Mainline Protestant schools have seen enrollments rise and fall over the past decade. Between the fall of 2000, when student bodies totaled 22,651, and last fall, when they had 22,068, mainline seminaries had peak years of 24,133 in 2002 and 24,024 in 2005.

Aleshire said in an interview that he has not heard convincing reasons for the fluctuations in enrollment.

Some speculation, at least for mainline Protestants, suggests that with the number of congregations able to afford a full-time pastor gradually declining, prospective students are asking, "Why go to seminary?" For prospective students with a sense of "call" or commitment to ministry, added Aleshire, such theories will not hold water.

Evangelical seminaries have increased enrollment at their satellite centers or extension campuses—going from 7,598 students in 2000 to 11,025 in 2007—but slipping the past two years down to 9,734. By contrast, enrollment at mainline seminary extension centers rose from 620 in 2000 to 1,401 by 2004, but only about 480 students now study at those centers.

"The drop in enrollment away from the main campuses may reflect the number of extension centers that have closed for financial reasons," said Aleshire.

One statistical trend shown in new ATS figures is that large schools are enrolling a higher percentage of students. About 30 seminaries with at least 500 students—12 percent of ATS schools—account for half of the 75,500 seminarians. In 2001, schools exceeding 500 students accounted for 47 percent.

Evangelical seminaries have grown larger in size and more numerous in the past decade, according to Eliza Smith Brown, director of communications for ATS. They now have more than twice the enrollment of seminaries with mainline Protestant ties.

The 13 largest schools (with enrollments above 1,000) are all known for their theologically conservative perspective. The largest is Fuller Theological Seminary (4,038), followed by two Southern Baptist schools—Southwestern in Fort Worth, Texas (2,591), and Southern Baptist in Louisville, Kentucky (2,585). Dallas Theological Seminary and Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary are fourth and fifth largest in size at 1,974 and 1,892 students respectively.

Fuller has steadily added what its officials call "regional campuses." Its newest is in Houston, the seventh satellite of the original campus in Pasadena, California.

The ATS annual enrollment report did not include figures on courses taught online. But that option—at least at Fuller—has grown in popularity with students and some faculty members, said Kevin Osborn, Fuller's executive director for distributed learning.

When ATS leaders hold their biennial meeting this June in Montreal, Aleshire said, seminary leaders will begin what "is going to be a complex and, I anticipate, tough conversation" over the percentage of course work done on the main campus and about the length of time needed to earn a degree. "Already it's taking an average of over four years to get through a three-year program," he said. "At Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Church in America schools you can't earn it in less than four years." The discussions in Montreal will inform a task force that will report back in two years.

"We have schools deeply divided on this. We've got schools that think that we've got to have more course work, not less, and it's got to be all residency," Aleshire said. "But others are committed to make it with shorter duration and [through more] options than [are] currently available."

"Budding priests in a time of crisis: Seminarians enter scandal-scarred vocation"

From The Washington Post

By William Wan
Photo by Michael S. Williamson

From behind his desk and wire-rimmed glasses, Monsignor Steven Rohlfs surveyed the class of 24 men. For almost six years, he had led them on the long, difficult path to priesthood, and now, as they stood on the cusp of reaching that goal, he worried.

He knew his seminarians would be entering an institution under fire over clergy sex abuse cases around the world. And he had seen the devastation a single bad priest could cause.

He had often told them about the job he'd held before becoming the seminary's rector -- the one that sent him to bed many nights a broken man. For seven years, he had investigated priests accused of sex abuse in Illinois.

And it was a darkness he was determined to keep out of their lives.

So, as Rohlfs began his last class with them at his rural seminary in Western Maryland, the 59-year-old monsignor raced through his notes, cramming in a long list of last-minute advice. In quick succession, he reviewed everything from the nitty-gritty of administering the holy sacraments to the common pitfalls of first-year priests.

At the end of the hour-long lecture, he paused and looked up from his notes.

He had come to know and love each of the students graduating from his class: the aspiring park ranger, the former Starbucks manager, the Air Force veteran, the newcomer from Nigeria. Many of them had confided their deepest doubts to him.

And in return, Rohlfs had shared the lessons he'd learned from 34 years as a priest. From the outside world, he warned them, they would encounter suspicion and, at times, outright disdain. From within, they would encounter something even more sinister: temptation.

"If you remember nothing else from today, I would boil down all this advice to one thing," he said as the class came to an end. "Fall in love with the Lord, and it will change everything. Fall out of love with Him, and it will change everything."

Sacrifices and suspicion

This year, 440 men will be ordained in the United States. They will enter the Catholic Church at a time of need, amid a decades-long shortage of priests. Two dozen of them will come from Mount St. Mary's in Emmitsburg, a town so rural it only recently acquired a second stoplight.

Six years ago, when most of this year's class arrived, the church was reeling from hundreds of abuse cases emerging across the United States. Now, just as they were preparing to leave for ordination, the church was once again mired in scandal.

They'd already experienced some of the far-reaching consequences of the sex abuse crisis. Getting into seminary had required a battery of psychological tests, long interviews and background checks.

"In the last six years alone, I've been fingerprinted four times," said out Mick Kelly, a 32-year-old former philosophy student who will be ordained next month in the Arlington Diocese. "That's more than some criminals out there get."

After he entered the seminary, one of Kelly's friends asked him: "How can you join an institution as corrupt as the Catholic Church?"

When he began wearing a clerical black robe and white collar four years ago, he noticed the stares he'd get from people. Some would look away.

"You try not to be defensive, to explain as best you can," he said. "It hurts. The world sees these abuse cases and judges the church as a whole, all its priests and all its work by the action of these few people. But it's not the priesthood I grew up with. The one I know and love."

For some seminarians, the abuse crisis only made them want to be priests more.

"It invoked that almost boyhood drive to be a hero," said Matt Rolling, 27, a soft-spoken student from Nebraska. "You want to help the church restore its name. You want to be an example of what the priesthood really represents."

To be a priest, Rolling said, means sacrifice. For him, answering God's call meant abandoning all his careful plans -- a career as a forest ranger, the girlfriend he'd been dating for three years at the University of Nebraska, the prospect of marriage and children.

Even now, he said, there are times when he feels a desire for a wife and family. And, of course, there is the issue of sex.

"It's not like when you become a deacon or priest, the hormones somehow shut off," he said. "There are temptations. There are doubts. How do you deal with that? You try to realize that temptation comes from the devil and salvation comes from God. You pray for that salvation. You build up the spiritual strength to look past the distraction. . . . When I see a girl, I try to think, 'If this were my daughter, how would I feel if someone looked at her that way, if someone mistreated her?' You try to move into that role of a father, which is what you're supposed to be, in a sense, as a priest."

Embracing celibacy at Mount St. Mary's is complicated by the fact that the seminary is housed on the same campus as a college, with a student body that includes plenty of young women.

Strolling through a lush garden dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Dave Wells, one of Rolling's close friends, put it this way: "I don't want to sound like it's the only thing we think about, but, yes, it can be tough."

Midway through the conversation, two girls in tight running clothes jogged by. Wells's eyes, however, remained fixed on a statue of Mary.

"It's good practice for us," he said later, "because in the parishes, we'll be surrounded and ministering to women, too. You may as well get used to it now."

Not everyone, however, can. About 15 percent of the seminarians leave without finishing. In the past year alone, Wells has attended two weddings for former seminarians in his class.

"Some of us are called to be fathers in the natural sense," he said. "Some are called in the spiritual sense."

Loving God

Such open talk of sex and the official dissection of temptations are things that have changed in the wake of the abuse scandals. Since Rohlfs arrived at Mount St. Mary's five years ago, he has made extensive teaching on celibacy a priority. Seminarians spend an entire year examining its history, theological roots and practical challenges. And they pore over reports on the abuse scandals, looking for clues.

It is a deliberately open approach for a man who, when asked to talk about the problem of abusive priests, takes off his glasses and rubs his face. A weariness creeps into Rohlfs' voice.

From 1998 to 2005, he was responsible for investigating accused priests as vicar general of the Peoria diocese. He was the one who had to hear the heart-wrenching accounts from abuse victims, who had to delve into the private lives of more than a dozen accused priests and confront them with his findings.

"It was the most painful time of my life," he said. "I had known a lot of these same priests growing up. But even worse was meeting the victims. You don't know what to say to them. The pain they've felt. There's nothing you can say that will change that."

He likened himself to a garbage man and woke up depressed every morning. It got so bad that he eventually made a new vow -- to watch a half-hour sitcom every night before he fell asleep just to make himself laugh. "I Love Lucy." "Everybody Loves Raymond." "Frazier."

Most of the priests he investigated had come from an era when celibacy was not taught at seminaries in a pragmatic, thorough way. Another thing the fallen priests had in common, he said, was that not one had kept up his daily prayers.

So at Mount St. Mary's, he has urged seminarians to pray at least one hour every day. If they don't, he demands to know what they could possibly be doing that's more important than talking to God?

But not even prayer can substitute for love. That's what stuck out most to Rohlfs in the wreckage of the fallen priests' lives. "We can teach them everything we know, but, in the end, duty cannot do it," he said. "It must be love -- loving God more than you love sin."

The crucial lesson

In his last class with them, Rohlfs watched as his seminarians dutifully wrote down this last piece of advice on love. But did they understand how crucial it was, he wondered. Would they remember?

The Class of 2010 is the first he has overseen from start to finish, and he confessed that he felt at times like a nervous parent on the first day of kindergarten -- eager to see his children succeed but, having seen the dangers in this world, scared of what they will encounter.

Sitting in his office last week -- with the year officially over and his seminarians packing up -- Rohlfs couldn't help picking through all the lessons he had given during the past six years. He asked himself whether he should have done anything different, whether he had missed something important.

He had taught them everything he knew, he said at last with a sigh. Now it was up to God.

View slideshow that goes with this story HERE.

"Seminarians, Inspired by Pioneer Priest, Pray for Black Vocations"

From American Catholic

WASHINGTON (CNS)—In his breviary, seminarian Christopher S. Rhodes carries a special holy card depicting Father Augustine Tolton, the first recognized black priest in the United States. In 2012, Rhodes hopes to be ordained as the first African-American priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., in more than two decades.

"I use that (holy card) always as a source of encouragement. If he could do it as the first, I could do it," said Rhodes, who is the only African-American seminarian now studying at Theological College, the national seminary of The Catholic University of America.

Rhodes now serves as the president of the National Black Catholic Seminarians Association, and he organized and sang as a cantor at an April 24 Mass at the Theological College Chapel to mark the National Day of Prayer for Vocations in the Black Community.

Washington Auxiliary Bishop Martin D. Holley, one of 16 African-American bishops, celebrated the Mass, which was held on the 124th anniversary of Father Tolton's ordination to the priesthood.

"I would not be standing here as a priest and a bishop if not for Father Augustine Tolton," said Bishop Holley. "The odds were stacked against him. He persevered because of faith and the grace of God."

Born into slavery in 1854 and baptized a Catholic, Father Tolton was encouraged by an Irish-American priest to pursue a vocation, but no U.S. seminary would accept him because of his race. He was ordained to the priesthood in Rome on April 24, 1886, and sent back to serve as a missionary in his own country. Despite the racism he endured, he became renowned as a preacher, and founded St. Monica Parish, the mother church for black Catholics in Chicago. He died in 1897 at age 43.

The Archdiocese of Chicago announced in March that it was beginning the sainthood process for Father Tolton.

According to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, about 75 seminarians of African descent, most of whom are immigrants from Africa, are studying to be priests in the United States. About 250 African-American priests, 400 African-American sisters and 50 black religious brothers are now serving in the United States, which has 3 million African-American Catholics.

At the Mass, Bishop Holley noted that Father Tolton had been encouraged in his vocation by his pastor, and the bishop said that happened in the case of his own family, when a German-American priest inspired his parents and older siblings to become Catholic, and he was given the name Martin after that priest.

"As a first-grader I watched my namesake" celebrate Mass, and "I wanted to do the same thing," the bishop said.

The bishop encouraged the seminarians to likewise serve their people with love and help lift up vocations. He noted that in today's world, there are "so many obstacles to hearing the voice of the Lord," and he pointed out how the African-American community faces challenges like high rates of abortion, AIDS, drug addiction and incarceration. "It's going to take good people like you to reach out. ... Evangelize, reach out to them."

Seventy-five seminarians and 10 graduate-student priests from 39 dioceses are now studying at Theological College.

During his homily, Bishop Holley prayed that through the intercession of Father Tolton, "the Lord will allow many young men in the African-American community to hear the call of God, through the example of you, (through) the way you live your life."

Benedictine Father Cyprian Davis, the author of "The History of Black Catholics in the United States," once said that "for black Catholics, he (Father Tolton) is the father of us all." After the Mass, Bishop Holley said he agreed with that assessment of the pioneer black priest. "He's the one who forged the path, who paved the way for us. He did what Christ did, he embraced the cross. The message of his life is one of love."

Bishop Holley said vocations can be lifted up in the African-American community by prayer, by people encouraging and talking about vocations, and by young people getting connected with supportive groups such as the Knights of Peter Claver.

"We've always been a people of prayer, you have to start with that," he said, adding that people need to share stories of faith and perseverance, like the life of Father Tolton. "They need to tell their story and hear the story of others."

"Seminary campaign far exceeds goal"

From St. Louis Review
By Joseph Kenny

The first capital campaign in the history of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary exceeded its goal by 21.7 percent, with $60,838,226 in pledges.

The goal had been set at $50 million to provide repairs, updates and physical improvements to a building that dates to 1931, while increasing its endowment.

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson, in a letter in today's Review, stated that donations to the "Faith for the Future" campaign are an expression of hope, especially during challenging economic times. The pledges are "a powerful statement of our hope in God's providence," he noted.

Archbishop Carlson also told the Review that the response to the campaign "shows the people's belief that we have to form good priests for the future so we can be a eucharistic people."

Frank Cognata, chief development officer of the archdiocese, noted that the seminary has formed more than 2,700 priests in the past, and the funds will prepare even more in the future. He said it was especially noteworthy that the campaign was conducted in a down economy and that participation met expectations. More than 2,000 volunteers helped make the campaign possible, with many of them making personal visits to potential donors.

The campaign has an unusually high $23 million in cash received to date, he said. About $2.3 million already was spent last fall for additional rooms for seminarians and other improvements. Another $3 million has been deposited into a capital fund to begin the preparation and planning. About $13.7 million has been deposited in the endowment.

Campaign expenses were held to 5.1 percent, a much lower number than expected. Matching gifts totaled $2.3 million.

About 100 parishes exceeded their goal. Bill Bellrose, chairperson of the campaign at his parish, St. Matthias in South St. Louis County, said the goal seemed hefty at first. The parish ended up raising $177,507, which was 161 percent of the goal.

"The most amazing thing about the campaign was that all you had to do was mention it was for the seminary and future priests, and people were standing in line to give. It just shows there's an awful lot of respect for the priesthood around the archdiocese," he said.

His pastor, Father Dennis Port, said: "I was so impressed by what they did. Obviously they want priests in the future."

He noted that five families in the parish are parents of priests. "The people have seen these men grow up and be ordained. I'm sure that helped, but the people are just remarkable and supportive of the Church," he said.

Msgr. Gregory Mikesch, pastor of St. Alban Roe Parish in Wildwood, served as coordinator of the Pastors' Advisory Committee. He called the generosity of the Catholics of the archdiocese remarkable. "They truly love the Church, love their priests and want to provide for the seminarians who will be serving them in the future."

Msgr. Mikesch said the campaign on the parish level was a united effort of many enthusiastic people.

Msgr. James E. Pieper, pastor of St. Clement Parish in Des Peres, said that in light of the economy, the generosity was truly overwhelming. "It did not seem likely as we were looking to it, but it indeed was a great, great tribute to the faith of the people," he said.

The people told him that the cause was a very good one. "The people are very much for vocations to the priesthood, and I think they looked on it as a vote of confidence in the future and wanted to do what they could to encourage vocations to the priesthood."

St. Clement was one of six parishes raising in excess of $1 million, and the parish ended up raising almost $1.7 million, 226 percent of its goal.

Another parish raising more than $1 million was St. Clare of Assisi in Ellisville, which raised $1.2 million, 130 percent of the goal, Msgr. Kevin Callahan, pastor of the parish, said the people "are really living stewardship and come through" on a variety of causes. "In this case, especially, they knew the importance of it. We have two seminarians at the parish. People know them, and there's a connection."

All three priests serving the parish went out and asked for commitments, he said. A DVD provided by the capital campaign was especially helpful, Msgr. Callahan said.

"We talked about our experiences in the seminary. It was not just another collection. The people could see the fruits of it by the priesthood and seminarians."

He noted that the seminary has a wide impact, including on other men who attended the seminary while discerning their vocation and decided not to be ordained. Those men also have received a good foundation from the seminary, he said.

As the number of seminarians has grown, so have the needs of the seminary, from the aging building to the increased need for up-to-date technology, from providing the best faculty and spiritual leaders to ensuring that an adequate endowment will be available to provide the archdiocese with priests both now and in the future.

Parishes big and small, rural and urban came through for the campaign. St. Paul Parish in St. Paul raised $235,535, twice its goal.

Msgr. John J. Hickel, pastor of the parish, said the campaign was well organized and didn't pressure people. "I was really proud of the response. For such a small parish it was amazing. If you would give me another cause I don't think I could match it. The DVD was a real winner. They could see there was an important need, and they responded to that."

Msgr. Daniel Hogan, pastor of St. Barnabas Parish in O'Fallon, said his parish also just told people of the needs. "We said, 'Give whatever you feel you're able to give.' Anytime we have a drive here, people really respond. They're just good people."

The parish raised $264,156, double its goal.

Msgr. Dennis Delaney, pastor of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist Parish in Downtown St. Louis, noted that his parish is unique. "We count fewer than 100 households as registered parishioners. We serve, though, the extended community of visitors and tourists in this center city area, as well as the community of business and civil employees who daily join us regularly.

"At St. John's our numbers are small, but the hearts of our people are great. The goal set for us was $29,000. Our people responded with gifts just over $50,000. Their response to the 'Faith for the Future' campaign reflects their appreciation for, and their commitment to, the formation of priests for this new millennium who are simple men, wise men, gentle men, holy men. Our people have made a commitment to the formation of priests, in the image of Christ, the one priest, for service to the glory of God and for the good of God's people."

Cognata pointed out that Archbishop Carlson initially met for three evenings with various campaign leaders in the parishes and made many other efforts. "He brought a real enthusiasm to it," Cognata said. "His past involvement and experience on other seminary boards offers a great insight to his commitment to vocations and the seminary. It also assures the stewardship of the funds raised will truly enhance this great seminary."

The chief development officer's thanks also go to Archbishop Raymond L. Burke, who was named prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura in Rome just a month after announcing the campaign, and Auxiliary Bishop Robert J. Hermann, who served as archdiocesan administrator until the installation of Archbishop Carlson.

Archbishop Carlson said one of the things he told people he met with was "what we have to do first is pray and ask God what He wants us to do."

The result of the campaign is "a great example of the generosity of people responding to what God wanted them to do," he said.

The campaign represented the priests, the people and religious pulling together and supporting the future of priests in the archdiocese through the premier seminary in this region, Archbishop Carlson added.

"Top Baseball Prospect Retires to Enter Priesthood"

From Foxnews.com

As a top prospect for the Oakland Athletics, outfielder Grant Desme might've gotten the call every minor leaguer wants this spring.

Instead, he believed he had another, higher calling.

Desme announced Friday that he was leaving baseball to enter the priesthood, walking away after a breakout season in which he became MVP of the Arizona Fall League.

"I was doing well at ball. But I really had to get down to the bottom of things," the 23-year-old Desme said. "I wasn't at peace with where I was at."

A lifelong Catholic, Desme thought about becoming a priest for about a year and a half. He kept his path quiet within the sports world, and his plan to enter a seminary this summer startled the A's when he told them Thursday night.

General manager Billy Beane "was understanding and supportive," Desme said, but the decision "sort of knocked him off his horse." After the talk, Desme felt "a great amount of peace."

"I love the game, but I aspire to higher things," he said. "I know I have no regrets."

In a statement, Beane said: "We respect Grant's decision and wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors."

Athletes and the priesthood have overlapped, albeit rarely.

Al Travers, who gave up 24 runs during a one-game career for a makeshift Detroit Tigers team in 1912, became a Catholic priest. More recently, Chase Hilgenbrinck of the New England Revolution left Major League Soccer in 2008 to enter a seminary.

Desme spoke on a conference call for about 10 minutes in a quiet, even tone, hardly sounding like many gung-ho, on-the-rise ballplayers. As for his success in the minors, he said "all of it is very undeserving."

The Athletics picked Desme in the second round of the 2007 amateur draft and he was starting to blossom. He was the only player in the entire minors with 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases last season.

Desme batted .288 with 31 homers, 89 RBIs and 40 steals in 131 games at Class-A Kane County and high Class-A Stockton last year. He hit .315 with a league-leading 11 home runs and 27 RBIs in 27 games this fall in Arizona, a league filled with young talent.

Desme went into the AFL championship game well aware it might be the last time he ever played. "There was no sad feeling," he said. He homered and struck out twice, which "defines my career a bit."

The Big West Player of the Year at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Desme was ranked as Oakland's No. 8 prospect by Baseball America. There was speculation the Athletics might invite Desme to big league spring training next month.

Rather, Desme intends to enter a seminary in Silverado, California, in August. He said abbey members didn't seem surprised someone who would "define myself as a baseball player" was changing his life so dramatically.

Desme said he didn't consider pursuing his spiritual studies while also trying to play ball. His family backed his decision and he said the positive reaction to his future goal — the surprising news spread quickly over the Internet — was "inspiring."

"It's about a 10-year process," he said. "I desire and hope I become a priest." In a way, he added, it's like "re-entering the minor leagues."

Desme's first two years in the minors were beset by shoulder and wrist problems. He said his days off the field gave him time to think about what was most important to him, to read and study the Bible and to talk to teammates about his faith.

In retrospect, he said, those injuries were "the biggest blessings God ever gave me."

Catholic seminary has 20-year enrollment peak

St. Meinrad, in Indiana, is ahead of national averages.

From The Associated Press
ST. MEINRAD — The nation's sixth-largest Catholic seminary is reporting its highest enrollment in two decades as more men flock to the southern Indiana campus to pursue the priesthood.

The influx of students has left the St. Meinrad School of Theology straining to find classroom and living space for students at the campus, 65 miles west of Louisville, Ky.

St. Meinrad, which trains future priests for dioceses in Kentucky, Indiana and across the nation, began the year with 121 students - its highest number since 1988.

Church leaders and seminarians said a combination of spiritual and practical factors are behind the growth.

The Archdiocese of Louisville's seminarian ranks were all but depleted in 2002 and 2003 at the peak of the child sexual abuse scandal involving numerous priests.

Some of the seminarians at St. Meinrad said that crisis actually prompted them to consider the priesthood. They said they believed the church would avoid repeating such scandals through more rigorous screening and training of would-be priests.

“I think that there is a sense of hope in the church” now, said Adam Carrico, of Pewee Valley, Ky., who is studying at St. Meinrad for the Louisville archdiocese.

“We've experienced some troubles,” he said, “but I think we've learned from what happened in the past, and there's kind of a sense we can move forward and there is a tomorrow.”

Part of St. Meinrad's growth also reflects increasing arrangements with dioceses around the country to train their seminarians.

Both the Louisville archdiocese and the seminary are ahead of the national average in seminarian enrollment, which has remained largely the same in the last 15 years as the Catholic population has grown, while the ranks of priests have aged and declined.

Louisville Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz credited archdiocese leaders for starting to reverse declines in seminarians even before he arrived in 2007 from Knoxville.

When Kurtz arrived, six men from the archdiocese were starting in seminary.

Kurtz said there's “no magic number” for recruitment goals, but he said ordaining four or five priests per year would “be a great blessing” toward easing the priest shortage.

The archdiocese has two priests working with recruits in addition to their parish duties.

Kurtz holds an annual “dinner with the archbishop” to encourage youths to consider joining the priesthood or religious orders. This year, the event drew hundreds of teenagers, the most in recent memory.

Jerry Byrd, a student from the Indianapolis archdiocese, said his path to the seminary began more than a decade ago as he converted to Catholicism as a teenager.

“My whole concept of a priest was based on priests I knew,” he recalled. “They were old and bald and slow.”

But one such priest told a class of people converting to Catholicism that “we need young men” in the priesthood, because “without the priests, we don't have the sacraments; if we don't have the sacraments, then we're not a church.”

"Pray for a Harvest of Holy Priests"

From The National Catholic Register
By Father Salvatore DeStefano

No priest ever forgets his first day in the seminary. After all the discernment, he has left the job behind, the girlfriend behind, his own family and friends behind — all to journey down an unknown path, hoping and praying that he is doing God’s will. My first day was just like this.

We had an excellent president, or rector as we call him, who summoned all the new recruits together for his annual opening conference of the academic year. You might think that he called us together to give us a bit of a pep talk, to tell us that we were bold for making this difficult decision to follow the Lord’s call in a world that was distancing itself more and more from God. You might think that he complimented us and told us to pray hard for the strength to find God’s purpose for our lives (ordination was never a given).

He did none of these things. Instead he said to us: “Gentlemen, if you’re not prepared to make every sacrifice necessary to become holy priests, then get out.”

The message was clear. The Church and world don’t need greater numbers of priests necessarily. What’s needed are holy priests. If we weren’t willing to accept this, we needn’t bother wasting our teachers’ time or our own — or God’s.

Some of the guys assembled that day were put off by this approach, but I wasn’t. Actually, I was very impressed. Here was a man who wasn’t concerned with playing the numbers game. He wasn’t interested in merely producing more vocations or impressing his superiors with his flourishing seminary program. What he cared about was producing holy priests, even at this beginning stage of priestly formation.

He did this because he felt with all of his heart, as he told us so many times, that “the people of God deserve the best.”

That was many years ago, but that phrase has always stuck with me. A good, holy, prayerful Catholic priest can do great and mighty things for God because the Holy Spirit will work through him. The people will truly be able to see God through him, which is what the Lord intended when he established the priesthood.

On the other side of that equation, an unholy, evil priest can make people lose their faith through his words and actions.

Scripture is very clear on this point. In the book of the prophet Jeremiah, the Lord says, “Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of the pasture … but I will take care to punish your evil deeds” (Jeremiah 23:1-6).

This is a direct warning to all priests. If you mislead my people, says the Lord, you’re going to pay. Jesus was moved to pity in the Gospel of Mark because the vast crowd was “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:30-34).

This is a crucial point to remember, because Pope Benedict XVI has declared this the Year for Priests. I suspect he is doing this not so much to celebrate the gift of the priesthood or the great priests we all know in our lives. There is plenty of time for that. Rather, it is the Year for Priests to pray for priests.

Benedict is imploring the people of God to pray for holy priests, men who are willing to make the sacrifices necessary to configure themselves to Christ the Good Shepherd. In his homily to open the Year for Priests, the Holy Father said that the faithful should “pray that the Lord inflame the heart of each and every priest … because the greatest suffering in the Church is the sin of its priests.”

Benedict rarely minces words, and he’s not going to start when it comes to something as important as the sanctity of the clergy.

I personally would like to forget the scandals that broke not so long ago. I’d like to forget them because I know in my heart, and in my experience, that the great majority of priests are good, devout, dedicated men — men who want nothing more than to serve God by serving the flock entrusted to them.

I’d like to forget the scandals because I know that the majority of the hideous acts we read about in the papers and heard about on television were committed by a relatively small group of sick, perverted, twisted men who should never have been ordained in the first place.

I’d like to forget the scandals — but I can’t. I can’t forget because I am reminded of them every time a little child rushes up to give me a hug after Mass, or whenever I visit a parish school. An uneasy feeling comes upon me at such times. In the back of my mind, always, is the question: Is someone looking at this scene and thinking something terrible? Are they seeing something that isn’t there?

This is tragic. Most priests love children, present company included. In fact, for me, the biggest stumbling block on the way to ordination was the lingering question as to whether I would be happier with a wife and children.

But there is hope. There is hope because Christ rose from the dead — and promised the same for you and me, if we try to follow his will. Christ rose from the dead, and he is still married to his Catholic Church, 2,000 years and many sins later. We are not always faithful to his teaching, but he is always faithful to us.

There are two sides to the Church, of course: the human side and the divine side. The human side gets us into trouble. But no matter how unfaithful we can be, he is still married to his bride, the Church.

This is the Year for Priests, and the Pope wants us to pray for holy priests — not just for more priests. Like the rector of that seminary so many years ago, God doesn’t play the numbers game. He wants his priests to be holy. Why? Because his people deserve the best.

Father Salvatore DeStefano is a priest of

the Archdiocese of New York.

"Seminary in Uganda is “Bursting at the Seams”"

From Catholic Exchange
by ACN-USA News

The seminary for mature vocations in Kampala, Uganda, can now scarcely accommodate the many candidates who want to study for the priesthood. This was the report of the rector of the seminary, Father Joseph Sserunjogi, to international Catholic pastoral charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

The lack of space in the seminary has now reached a point where even the office rooms within the seminary and other rooms in a nearby monastery are being converted into dormitory accommodations. Even with these changes as many as 15 students have to cram into a dormitory area of just 15 square meters, Father Sserunjogi told ACN. This was hardly a fitting state of affairs, he observed, adding that in many rooms there is a lack of fresh air and a consequent danger of ill-health.

At the same time, Father Sserunjogi finds it very hard to turn away vocations simply because of the shortage of space. For the coming academic year, beginning in September, there have been 48 applicants, and the seminary has only been able to accept 28 due to the lack of suitable accommodations.

This is a "very regrettable" situation, according to Father Sserunjogi, because "priests are needed everywhere and yet for lack of space we have to turn away those who feel themselves called." The priest told ACN that the seminary is trying everything possible to turn away as few potential candidates as possible. He continued by saying he believes that in future it will be essential to extend the seminary, since they cannot allow themselves to lose possible vocations.

The mature vocations seminary was opened in 1976. The diocese had a building available and the then Bishop of Kampala recognized that there are many men who have already learned a trade or profession yet subsequently feel themselves called to the priesthood. It all began with just a handful of seminarians, and of the 17 candidates in the "first wave," nine have now been ordained to the priesthood and two of them have go on to become bishops. Since the seminary first opened, no fewer than 180 priests have issued from it.

At the present time there are 155 men studying for the priesthood in the seminary, and the number is growing steadily. All have had other trades or professions before entering the seminary; many were teachers, others were white collar workers, policeman or veterinarians. The oldest candidate, who is now a priest, was 56 years old when he entered the seminary, the rector told ACN, but most are aged between 24 and 31 and come from one of the 15 dioceses in Uganda or from neighboring countries like Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Sudan.

In Father Joseph’s experience, the advantage of these late vocations lies in the fact that the men are "already more mature" and have reached their decision independently and with conscious deliberation. On the other hand they tend sometimes to take longer than the young seminarians to get used to life in the seminary.

The priest said that the most important thing is to communicate a sense of joy in the priesthood. At the same time it is important to prepare his seminarians for the real situations they will face as priests in Uganda. Many people in Uganda live in extreme poverty; they have no shoes, no watch, and yet they are willing to walk for hours in order to get to Holy Mass.

The longing of the people for God is great, Father Joseph told ACN. When a priest is held up by the appallingly bad roads and arrives late in a village, the faithful are willing to wait patiently many hours for him. Yet, at the same time, they expect a great deal from the priest. "They expect him to take care of everything," the rector explained to ACN. This can be a severe challenge for a priest to represent in every respect the only hope for many people, and he must at the same time make clear to people that what matters above all is Jesus Christ.

Father Joseph also explained how seminarians must learn how to deal with the still widespread belief in witchcraft that exists in many regions. The rector explained that it was ineffective to ban such practices. Instead, the right way is to show the people that the Christian God is the true God, who is everything that they need.

"Many people believe for example that a particular stone will bring rain," Father Joseph said, "but we must above all do something for the people, so that they will understand that Christianity is the true religion. Our deeds are more important than our words here!" Social commitment was also important, he said, since "a hungry man will not listen to our preaching."

In Uganda, the number of vocations is rising each year. According to Vatican statistics, every fifth seminarian worldwide now comes from Africa. At the same time, the number of Catholics is also rising so that in many regions there are still far too few priests. ACN is particularly committed to the training of priests in Africa and supports seminarians throughout the continent. The charity also helps to fund the construction, extension and renovation of seminaries.

"Pope Benedict XVI: Priests Should Be Witnesses of Love"

From ZENIT

Reflects on St. John Eudes' Devotion to Christ and Mary

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy, AUG. 19, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A priest must be a witness and apostle of the love that is in the hearts of Christ and Mary, says Benedict XVI.

The Pope affirmed this today during the general audience in Castel Gandolfo in which he reflected on St. John Eudes and the priesthood, in the context of the Year for Priests. The feast of the 17th-century French saint is celebrated today.

Noting the difficulties in 17th-century France, the Holy Father said that "the Holy Spirit inspired a fervent spiritual renewal, with prominent personalities. […] This great 'French school' of holiness also had St. John Mary Vianney among its fruits. By a mysterious design of Providence, my venerated predecessor, Pius XI, proclaimed John Eudes and the Curé d'Ars saints at the same time, on May 31, 1925, offering the Church and the whole world two extraordinary examples of priestly holiness."

Speaking about the formation of diocesan priests, the Pontiff recalled how in the 16th century, "the Council of Trent issued norms for the establishment of diocesan seminaries and for the formation of priests, as the council was aware that the whole crisis of the Reformation was also conditioned by the insufficient formation of priests, who were not adequately prepared intellectually and spiritually, in their heart and soul, for the priesthood."

"This occurred in 1563," he said, "but, given that the application and implementation of the norms took time, both in Germany as well as in France, St. John Eudes saw the consequences of this problem."

The saint, Benedict XVI went on to explain, was moved "by the lucid awareness of the great need of spiritual help that souls were feeling" and as a parish priest, he "instituted a congregation dedicated specifically to the formation of priests."

Path of holiness

The Pope noted that St. John Eudes' proposal for holiness was founded on "a solid confidence in the love that God revealed to humanity in the priestly Heart of Christ and the maternal Heart of Mary."

"He wanted to remind people, men and above all future priests, of the heart, showing the priestly Heart of Christ and the maternal Heart of Mary. A priest must be a witness and apostle of this love of the Heart of Christ and of Mary," the Holy Father affirmed.

He contended that today as well, there is the "need for priests to witness the infinite mercy of God with a life totally 'conquered' by Christ, and for them to learn this in the years of their formation in the seminaries."

Benedict XVI said that like Pope John Paul II, who in 1990 "actualized the norms of the Council of Trent," he emphasizes the "need for continuity between the initial and permanent moments of formation."

"The time in the seminary should be seen," he proposed, as the "actualization of the moment in which the Lord Jesus, after having called the Apostles and before sending them out to preach, asks that they stay with him."

"In this Year for Priests," the Holy Father concluded, "I invite you to pray […] for priests and for those preparing to receive the extraordinary gift of the priestly ministry. I conclude by addressing to all the exhortation of St. John Eudes, who said thus to priests: 'Give yourselves to Jesus to enter into the immensity of his great Heart, which contains the Heart of his Holy Mother and of all the saints, and to lose yourselves in this abyss of love, of charity, of mercy, of humility, of purity, of patience, of submission and of holiness.'"

"Pune seminary closed as swine flu spreads"

What could be coming for our American seminaries...

From Indian Catholic

A Catholic seminary, billed as Asia’s largest, was closed on Aug. 11 as swine flu spread rapidly in Pune, western India.

“Precaution is better than cure and therefore we have shut down Asia’s largest seminary for one week from Aug. 11,” said Jesuit Father Job Kozhamthadam, president of the Pune-based Jnana-Deepa Vidyapeeth (University of Knowledge Light), earlier known as the Pontifical Athenaeum.

By Aug. 12, swine flu had claimed its sixth victim in Pune, which reported India’s first death from the disease on Aug. 3. Elsewhere in the country, the virus has killed nine other people.

“The airborne disease is entrenched in the city and the virus is spreading fast,” Father Kozhamthadam said, adding that the seminary followed a state health directorate advisory to close all educational institutions. “We don’t want to lose any candidates training for the priesthood” as the virus can be easily transmitted “through coughing, sneezing and human contact,” he added.

The Jesuit priest also said more than 770 students of philosophy, theology and doctoral courses stay at the campus. About 10 percent of students are women and 15 percent are from overseas.

The Indian students come from 68 dioceses and 49 religious congregations. The 116-year-old institute has 30 resident and 25 visiting teachers.

On Aug. 12, Bombay archdiocese closed all its 150 high schools and five colleges for a week. “We don’t want to expose our students to the virus, which is now spreading rapidly,” Father Gregory Lobo, secretary of the Bombay Archdiocesan Board of Education, told UCA News.

On the same day, the Maharashtra government ordered the closure of all educational institutions for a week and shopping malls and cinemas for three days.

Meanwhile, two Vatican officials have confirmed their participation at a national seminar the Indian Bishops’ Committee for Science, Religion and Society plans to hold in Pune from Aug. 18-20. Its theme is “The Christian Faith in a World of Science: Challenges and Opportunities.”

Father Kozhamthadam, an organizer, said Polish Father Tomasz, executive director of the Dicastery of the Pontifical Council for Culture, and Pilar Father Theodore Mascarenhas, undersecretary of the council’s Asia Desk, have said they will attend the seminar despite the swine flu outbreak.

“Some Indian participants have canceled their visit to Pune and we will make a decision whether to hold the seminar or not in a couple of days in consultation with Archbishop Thomas Menamparambil of Guwahati, the chief organizer of the seminar,” Father Kozhamthadam said.

The more than 100 invitees to the seminar include bishops, provincials and other Church leaders from India, the priest said.

Kenrick-Glennon Seminary launches capital campaign

Due to INCREASED enrollment, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary is almost filled to capacity and there is a need to expand and improve the seminary to meet the needs of all the new seminarians. They have launched a capital campaign, "Faith for the Future" to respond to the blessing of the largest incoming classes of seminarians in twenty years.

The Secret Garden

Life inside the Pontifical College Josephinum is structured in solemn study punctuated by prayer (and an occasional beer)

From the Columbus Dispatch

This article is part of a weeklong series "Answering the Call" which includes daily articles and slideshows.

By Todd Jones

Photo at left: Deacon Robert Bolding, left, gives the kiss of peace to new deacon David P. Miller during an ordination ceremony for deacons in April. Photo by Fred Squillante

Traffic snaked along N. High Street near I-270 in a bumper-to-bumper line of frustration as the sun rose over the Pontifical College Josephinum.

The taillight-flashing bustle of commuters contrasted with the serenity a few hundred yards away, where students flowed quietly into a chapel inside the seminary's College of Liberal Arts building.

Some carried Bibles, others small prayer books. Each was bleary-eyed and silent.

The mid-February morning was like every morning for those men studying to be Roman Catholic priests at the Vatican-owned school on the Far North Side.

The students were gathering for the 7:30 a.m. recitation of the Liturgy of the Hours, a quick prayer they also gather to say in the evening -- and offer in private three other times each day.

"It sets a rhythm to your day," said Deacon Robert Bolding, a fourth-year theologian assigned this day to lead the undergraduates in prayer. "It sanctifies time."

To help replenish its thinning ranks, the Catholic Church needs men willing to dedicate nearly a decade to priestly training that is disciplined, demanding and, Robert said, as slow as a stalactite's growth.

"That's one of the great challenges," said the Rev. Jeff Coning, vocations director for the Diocese of Columbus. "That's eight years that you need a student to sit there and work, and kids today are used to living life by a Palm Pilot. "

Seminarians say the adjustment doesn't come easy, and even those close to becoming priests struggle at times with the rigid structure.

"It's like a real long boot camp," said Robert, a Phoenix native. "Sometimes, I feel choked by the whole routine of it."

His routine has been basically the same -- prayer, Mass, classes, homework -- since he entered the St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., eight years ago, and enrolled in the Josephinum's School of Theology in 2005.

To describe seminary life, he uses the analogy of a tree being surrounded by other trees: it only has one place to grow, and that's up.

"It helps discipline your soul and helps us grow to God," Robert said. "That's the value of formation and living accordingly to the external rules. That's part of what makes you a priest. That's part of learning obedience and self-sacrifice. But it gets old."

Robert, 27, lived his final seminary year alone in an undecorated room without a TV or stereo (although Josephinum rules permit both) in a dorm hall with a community bathroom.

He owned few clothes other than his black clerical garb. He drove his parents' car because he has never owned one.

"Somebody sets my schedule," said Robert, bound by the Josephinum's curfew of 11 p.m. weeknights and midnight on weekends. "If I miss something, I have to have an excuse. It's understandable why it has to be like that in the seminary, but I'm approaching 30."

Still, Robert considered seminary life to be a great blessing, enabling him time to concentrate on studying and discerning God's call.

Each Josephinum student is assigned a Director of Spiritual Formation from the faculty to help guide him through the four pillars of formation -- spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and human -- directed by the Vatican and U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

"You spend hours in prayer to give your will over to God: Is this what you want for me?" Robert said.

Mystery is part of that divine process and also part of this place.

The Josephinum's bell tower rises nearly 200 feet and was the highest point above sea level in Franklin County until the Rhodes Tower was built Downtown in the 1970s.

Every day, thousands of commuters drive by the brick and limestone tower along N. High Street, yet few have stepped inside the Gothic-style administration building or seen its 900 windows, the terrazzo floors or the inlaid wood paneling.

"I think the Josephinum is like the Wonka Factory of Columbus," said third-year theologian John Eckert. "Everybody knows it's there, and they've seen it, but they have no idea what goes on behind the gates."

Seminarians who venture off their private campus, 11 miles north of downtown Columbus, hear their home described by outsiders as the castle in Harry Potter movies.

The Josephinum sits on 75 pastoral acres, with manicured fields (including a cemetery) and a front driveway lined with trees. The collection of four buildings houses dormitories and four chapels.

A curious Ohio family once stopped by the school -- the only pontifical seminary outside Italy -- and visited with its rector and president at the time, Monsignor Paul Langsfeld.

"They thought it was a monastery where we milk cows, make our own bread and make curd," said Langsfield, who left the school in July for a new assignment.

With the Catholic Church need- ing more priests, the Diocese of Columbus' vocations director often finds himself addressing misconceptions about seminary life.

"Parents want to know: How often am I going to see my kids?" Coning said. "The big concern of (candidates) is: Are they going to be able to socialize and have friends like they would at other places?"

Josephinum students discover that they have time for social and athletic recreation. The school offers intramural sports and hosts a basketball tournament each February for visiting seminary teams.

J.J.'s Pub, the campus bar in the basement of the theology building, has a flat-screen TV and is home to karaoke, the "Pub Olympics," trivia nights, Mardi Gras and Super Bowl parties, and fantasy football league arguments.

"Guys have fun," said Deacon Michael Ross, the Josephinum's academic dean. "They like their rock 'n' roll. They're not walking around here uptight and never smiling. They're young American guys. It's not monks. It's not prison."

Demands were different when Monsignor John Joseph Jessing, a German immigrant, founded the Josephinum in 1888 at 17th and Main streets, near Downtown. (The school moved to the Far North Side campus in 1931.)

Before the Vatican II conference, during which bishops made liberal changes to church doctrine and practices in the mid-1960s, the Josephinum was more rigid. Students spoke only German in the first half of each month. Their mail was censored. A priest chaperoned them off campus.

"Those days are long since gone," Ross said.

To get out that message, the Josephinum, which had a high school until 1967, conducts campus tours. Students' families are invited to spend a weekend at the seminary each fall, and the public is welcome at the school's annual Irish Festival in February.

"It's good for people to interact with vocations and see that priests just don't fall out of the sky," Robert said.

The call to priesthood is more mysterious than momentous.

"It's the still, small voice -- an idea you can't get out of your head," Robert said. "It's something you're drawn toward."

Although the seminary helps with discernment, doubt still creeps in.

"You're never certain you can do it," Robert said. "I know being this close (to ordination), I could not do what a priest needs to do without the grace of God."

Robert was reminded of that in late February when he assisted in a Mass attended by 68 Josephinum undergraduates, most of them barely removed from high school.

Some were nearly a decade younger than Robert, and many won't become priests.

Langsfeld said the Josephinum sees up to 20 percent of its undergrads drop out each school year.

"It's normal for a collegian to come and realize over a certain part of time that this is not for him," Langsfeld said. "We've had guys come, leave, and come back after several years."

Robert did so. Three semesters shy of his undergraduate degree, he withdrew from St. John Vianney College Seminary.

He was 21, struggling with faith issues and "just not feeling it."

"I didn't have the maturity then to stick it out with the ups and downs of the seminary," he said.

Robert stayed in St. Paul, moved into an off-campus apartment, took a catering job and continued school as a nonseminarian at the University of St. Thomas.

His parents, Patty and Al Bolding, never questioned their son's decision.

"We just supported him," said his mother. "We told him, 'Robert, you've got to follow your heart and listen to what God is telling you.'"

Free from the seminary, Robert dated a woman for six months, but the relationship ended. He traveled to Rome and felt stirred to return to the seminary.

When he returned to Minnesota to finish school, he met an attractive woman.

"It was a platonic relationship, but I really loved this girl, and she reciprocated that love," Robert said.

That love, however, couldn't eclipse his heart's calling. Robert decided to re-enter the seminary and was accepted back by the Diocese of Phoenix, which sent him to the Josephinum in 2005.

"Anytime I have a moment of second-guessing, I always have that to rely on: I loved somebody, she loved me, and I still knew I was called to the priesthood," he said.

Now, four months shy of the priesthood, Robert gave the Mass homily to undergraduates who face their own questions about the future.

"Jesus says, 'If you want to follow me, you have to take up the cross and come after me,' " Robert preached. "If you want to live, you have to throw your life away. That tells us the Christian life is about death."

He understands now that the seminary is a place you go to die -- to give up your secular desires and rise to God's wishes.

Homily complete, Robert sat down in the silent chapel.

A priest stood up.

"For an increase to the priesthood and the religious life, we pray to the Lord," he said.

The young seminarians answered in unison:

"Lord, hear our prayer."