Seminaries and formation: One priest’s perspective and suggestion

Carrying out the formation of priests in a monastic setting might seem counterintuitive. However, it is less so than it seems.

(Image: Andrés García | us.fotolia.com)

It appears that few today believe the Catholic Church should continue business as usual. Loud voices on one hand call for movement—walking or running in the “paths of the Spirit”—toward a “new Church”. On the other hand, there are those who look with horror on this instability and change. Their solution is a return to celebrating the liturgy with reverence, perhaps in forms that predate Vatican II. They also frequently preach an option for local, small-scale community life patterned to some degree after St. Benedict.

“If it isn’t in motion, it isn’t alive!” cry the first. “If it isn’t changeless, it cannot be of God!” say the second.

This is not, of course, a sterile ideological debate. The present moment is rapidly influencing the future of the Church, even though there is no consensus about what is to be done. In the interim, while debates and discernment continue in various forms, seminarians become priests, parishes are torn to the left and then to the right and then back again, many people are frustrated and hurt and angry, and the flock is all too often confused or even dispersed.

There are so few authoritative and unifying voices that it sometimes seems that the Church is condemned to be just another political battleground between the red and the blue, the right and the left. But Jesus Christ is surely greater and more interesting than that! Surely he continues to bear within himself the seed of authentic unity. And the Holy Spirit, subtle and effective and infinitely creative, continues to work and stream forth.

In the midst of this, how can the Church prepare good shepherds for her flock? How can she avoid the sterile dichotomies between freedom and authority, or between “fresh new life” and “dependable traditional stability”, that lacerate the mystical body of Christ?

It is old news, I think, that our current seminary system is often inadequate and lacking. The seminaries designed after the Council of Trent served their purpose, but society and the Church’s self-understanding about its relationship with society are quite different today. This difference was already visible in many churchmen writing during the mid-twentieth century, and became macroscopically obvious during and following the Second Vatican Council. Liturgical and educational experiments ensued, often with disastrous results. Today, the pendulum has swung back toward more traditional proposals in many places, while in other places a reaction to the reactionaries has kept things more “liberal” and “open”, fluffy and formless. To this observer, both options seem ill-equipped to guide the flock without harming and dispersing it, either through excessive action or through paralyzed inaction.

Many parishes and communities approve of their priest because he is “one of the guys”. So, in some locales, priests aim to become enthusiastic about football and hunting and beer. In other company, they might also take up golfing and learn about the finer points of coffee preparation. Other communities want their priest to be “spiritual”, so he takes to wearing a cassock and perhaps grows a beard, while carrying around serious-looking breviaries. Some would like their pastor to embrace the use of highly amplified and approximately tuned guitars in Mass; but in that same parish there are also those who want nothing but chant and pipe organs—and the priest must smile at both.

And so the priests stumble along—left-right-left-right—like particles in Brownian motion.

One way forward, I suggest, lies in carrying out the formation of priests in a monastic setting. This might seem counterintuitive. However, it is less so than it seems.

In order to steer a course, a parish priest must have a strong character and a clear idea about the direction in which to lead, whatever the broader society may think (or feel). The willingness to row against the current is a particularly striking feature of the monastic life. In order to follow God, monks are willing to give up many things that society regards as important and essential. Perhaps most visibly of all, monks relinquish power. For love of God, they give up the power to generate physical life, the power to decide at what time they will eat or what they will do with money, even the power to decide with whom they share their life.

This is the opposite of a political approach to life. It is an expression of the deep trust that God provides infinitely more than any human wielding of power ever could.

Something similar must be true of the parish priest as well. He must be governed first of all by a trust in God, which persists even in the laceration that a non-Christian society inflicts upon his heart. In most situations it is simply not possible for him to please a majority of his parishioners (see above)—so he needs a better compass than the political temptation to choose to please the part of the community that he finds most appealing, or least objectionable. He needs a deep freedom, such as what a true monk possesses.

A parish priest also needs a special kind of patience in his desire to build and to make better. In order to avoid dispersing the sheep, he must be gentle and patient and be governed not only by the plans he wishes to carry out, but first of all by the desire to love and serve and shepherd his flock. All plans, even the best thought out plans, are too static to contain reality. All plans and all formation directives are provisory, because God’s action and human action in the world are ever new and ever surprising. The Creator has given human beings the freedom to choose their path forward, together with the responsibility to remain attentive to new signs of the Holy Spirit that indicate a necessary change, in order to walk toward greener pastures.

The parish priest must be able to take a long view, well beyond the three or six or ten years he expects to be in a parish. He must be able to see that his time of leadership is a brief moment in a centuries-old story. He must know how to build within that story and to not delude himself into thinking he can build something completely new—whether beside or in place of the old. This too is a monastic trait, gained by long experience living with the same clumsy group of humans in the same all-too-limited space. By staying mostly in their cells, and by building in continuity with what had been built before them, monks have many times changed the face of society. Parish priests can do the same, but they need to see their five-year-plans in a new way. They would be helped by seeing with the eyes of a monk.

Once a priest has left the seminary and is working in the world, he sooner or later will find himself in great need of a way to recover his spiritual center and to rest. Priests try many different ways to find rest, with varying success and some dismal failures. In the opinion of this writer, days of rest spent in a monastery are the best solution. Monasteries offer companionship and silence together—there are welcoming people around, but it is not necessary to speak to them. A simple nod of greeting, a smile, prayers and meals shared together, are powerful restorative forces for a man who has been drained by a week of intense conversation with needy parishioners. In the parish, his prayer is usually done alone, which often feels like rowing a solitary skiff upstream. Participating in the choral prayer of a large group of men is, instead, like floating with the current in a large and joyful craft, bright with individual voices and calm with the shared rhythm of breathing and singing.

Of course, the parish priest is not a monk. He loves the world, he loves the variety and the challenge, and the freedom to govern much of his life by his own best lights. Few are called to be monks. But there is a complementarity between vocations that is beautiful and enriches all. Families are well served by friendship with their priests, and a priest is nourished by his fatherly relationship with couples and their children. In a similar way, monks and parish priests need each other. They are peers in their common search for God, oarsmen rowing together. The monks remind the priest of his fundamental root, underneath all his administrative headaches, and they give him the repose he offers his parishioners the rest of the time. All of this remains rather theoretical for a priest who has not been formed in a monastic life, but is already lived experience for those fortunate enough to have spent their seminary days with a healthy monastic community.

The further question about how the relationship between seminary formation and monastic communities could be best articulated is beyond the scope of this article, and undoubtedly needs serious work and creative thought. The existing seminaries affiliated with monasteries—for instance, St. Vincent Archabbey in Pennsylvania, St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana, and Mount Angel Abbey in Oregon—are an important beginning and should be supported. They show a good way forward.


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


About Fr. John Chalny, STD 1 Article
Fr. John Chalny, STD, is the nom de plume of a parish priest who has spent half of his life in European capitals and half in small-town North America.

27 Comments

  1. In the midst of this, how can the Church prepare good shepherds for her flock?

    “Renewal must begin with accepting responsibility for the past” (Bishop Moriarty)

    I believe that our church could lead mankind into a new dawn, but revolutionary heroism will be needed by our Shepherds, many good men hemmed in well.
    From a previous/old post;

    “You know that those who are supposed to rule over the Gentiles lord it over them. But it shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all”

    “Jesus Christ gave his disciples these instructions to ensure that those who lead, give full account to those they serve, if they do not, the dignity and sacrificial image of the Shepherd is lost and in effect before mankind he “The Shepherd” becomes a lackey, and his actions becomes complicit with those blind (Unaccountable) guides he serves.

    All true lovers of Christ are held together by serving the Truth within their hearts (as defined by Jesus Christ) and are manifest by each individual in bearing witness to the Truth, this ensures Unity of Purpose. The gates of hell cannot overcome them, as the Deceiver and those who follow him cannot participate openly with His lovers as the Light of Truth will expose their actions.

    This action can be demonstrated in serving the Truth, as shown by Former Bishop Moriarty’s resignation, we can look to him as an example; we see a man of integrity a person to be honored and respected, a true leader, serving the Truth (First), a man to be trusted, see. http://www.kandle.ie/bishop-moriarty-resignation/
    So how can our Shepherds emulate the man with the character of Bishop Moriarty, today and create and demonstrate Unity of Purpose”

    The leadership of the Church has betrayed its core values (Teachings), so how could one trust, a given trust, that has been shown to be so untrustworthy?
    Credibility has been lost, and the root of the problem is elitism, manifest as a self-serving authoritarianism, which is embedded within Clericalism.

    Merriam-Webster: Clericalism; a policy of maintaining or increasing the ‘power’ of a religious hierarchy; So ‘clerics’, as in Clericalism is the problem’, as it is the vehicle that carries our Christian enterprise, which has systematically nullified men of integrity.

    As a child in the fifties I would usually spend my summer holidays in Limerick, as my bed in Leeds was needed by one of my Uncles, so that he could spend the summer months working in England. On one occasion I was with a relative queuing outside a butcher shop, close to the centre of Limerick City, when a young priest joined the queue, I could not help noticing how clean and well turned out (nourished) he was, in comparison to the rest of us.

    The butcher came out of the shop and in a loud voice proclaimed “It is not right that a man of the cloth should have to wait in a queue; come forth and take the first place” (Words to that effect). The smiling young priest went forward, and for his troubles also received some extra free meat (Lamb).

    There were murmurings within the queue from some of the women; to the effect of “I have twelve hungry children at home waiting to be feed, another “I will be lucky if I can afford a few bones” etc. As the young priest left the shop, full of hope with a kind smiling face, someone quipped, “Our next bishop” this was accompanied by sniggers, he was oblivious of what he had just done. In oblivion, our young priest had taken his first step into venality, in spiritual ignorance, his pride had taken advantage of his spiritual position and unaware he had bought into the privileged classes, of power and authority, and in so doing he may have begun a journey of trampling on those he was meant to serve.

    The butcher, businessman (Man of the world) was fully aware of what he had brought about and this scenario (corruption), under different disguises, is still been re-enacted today, not just in Ireland but throughout the Western World, as our emptying churches can testify.

    As our young priest walks away, full of hope and expectation, to begin his priestly journey through life, we can reflect on what he had to contend with.
    The Seminaries that moulded this young man and others taught them that obedience to the Church (Establishment) is paramount, but failed to TELL (teach) them that obedience that does not embrace Truth, is an easy option, as it takes away responsibility for ones actions or inactions, and that the price to pay is loss of integrity, in effect one becomes a lackey and the image of Christ in his/their sacrificial life would be lost.

    He would have been unaware that the Church since its earliest beginnings was at war within itself, he would not have known that some who taught him and others who would have authority over him, were waterless clouds (producers of deserts), dry trees (those who renounce good/Truth to serve evil) and dreamers (manipulators). See Epistle of Jude. And this obedience without Truth would enable them to prosper.

    This docility (lack of vigor) to uphold the Truth has enabled those in authority to perpetuate great acts of evil, one been the cover up of the child abuse scandal, accompanied by the present self-serving blasphemous Divine Mercy Image in God’s house on earth, as our Shepherds embrace this truth they must realize that they have been complicit (by neglect) by serving obedience before the Truth.

    It is said that we are a work in progress and so we are.
    We can still see our young man (boy) in the butcher’s shop, his face is reflected in many of our Shepherds today, if they look out of the boat (Church) His Shepherds will see a glowing ember and a figure that they seem to know, waiting at the lake side with Peter the Man.

    Does our young priest in the butchers shop now becomes a Man?

    kevin your brother
    In Christ

    • Thank you for your comment. Following the Truth (who is Jesus) and following His word, I would add should be uppermost in the minds of the Shepherds. If the Church does not honor and follow the Living Lord and the word He has left us in the Scriptures why should any person follow anything mere men write or say? They have no anchor to keep them from going adrift.

    • Thank you for your comment abj

      Yes I agree the serving the Truth in all situations ’should be uppermost in the minds of our Shepherds’ and ourselves also.
      The Cross a symbol of Jesus Christ for us Christians, is far more than a symbol of ‘love’ as it symbolizes His Love given in obedience to His and our Fathers Will, in the serving of the Truth. The serving of the Truth is Love, and to know Jesus Christ, this must be truly understood.

      A holy Church is a humble Church and by definition a Holy Priesthood is a humble Priesthood.
      Image lies at the root of many problems within the Church today, as It could be said that ‘Image’ reigns supreme on the ‘Worldly’ plain, as it creates the power to award both honour and shame. Clericalism the vehicle that carried our Christian endeavours throughout the ages, has manged, assisted by a ‘Worldly Faithful,’ to maintain an ‘Image’ of Holiness/goodness, before mankind. This Image of Goodness (Only God is good) has now been shattered. So now how can the leadership and all of us, embrace this shattered Image?

      The credibility of the Priesthood to-day can only be resolved by an onward manifestation of priestly transparency. A possible way forward

      James 5:6 “tell your sins to one and other”…

      As in reveal your selves (Confessing) to one and other in brotherly love, led by the Bishop been ‘open’, in unity, with all his priests (Annually) as truth is the mortar that holds His house together. In this way accountability for anything that might bring the Church into disrepute, is shared/confronted, while creating Unity of Purpose. In this scenario individual Confession to a fellow priest should only be administered in an emergency (near death). As the ‘true intent’ to confess annually (Openly) would form the basis of an ‘Act of Perfect Contrition’ (Forgiveness at that moment in Time) as

      “God will not despise a broken spirit and contrite heart”

      I believe that the Shepherd leader for a new invigorated Church will be a humble one, with the capacity to discern and direct the potential in others, leading them also to become (Working) Shepherds, who together hold each other responsible for their combined actions, underpinned by total honesty, the serving of the Truth in all situations would be the binding mortar holding these new emerging structures together.

      The essence of Love is Truth we all fall short in the actions of Love, but no man or woman can excuse dishonest before their brothers and sisters who would serve the Truth, for to do so would be an attempt to destroy the mortar (Humility) of that unity.

      It is said you cannot be what you do not see/envisage, we need to see our Shepherds holding the bright lamp of Truth high above their own vulnerabilities, teachings us by example, in humility, how we are also to be made holy (Sanctified) as in

      “Sanctify them in the Truth; thy Word is Truth as thou didst send me into the world so I have sent them into the world and for their sake I consecrate myself that they also may be consecrated in truth”

      It could be said, that for true emotional inter-dependence to come about with others, we need to show/tell our vulnerability, for when we do so, it confers authenticity, a place from where we can truly share the communal meal and our life with others.

      kevin your brother
      In Christ

  2. What a beautifully written and compelling article. It seems to me that not only would the monastery be a place of repose and reflection for a priest’s annual retreat, but also a potential place of retirement when he grows older, to return to that place of silent prayer that nourished him and spend his remaining days in intercessory prayer, study, and meditation, still available to younger priests, former parishioners and those who seek him, but part of a community of prayer as well.

    Now, how to make this come about is the next question. Perhaps the lay faithful who are convinced by this argument can direct some of their charitable giving to supporting the seminaries mentioned at the close of the article. We should all be supporting seminaries that are turning out the best-formed, most courageous and holy priests.

  3. Priests, should lead guide their flock in the foot steps of christ. The church is has become to regid in its ways, rules and norms for getting the original teaching of Jesus. We the church have since its inception have grown to powerful and demanding respect as the one and only true Church and way to heaven, being saved?? But Jesus never started the Catholic Church the Christian faith, movement which later became know as the Holy Roman Catholic Church. But me I like many are Christians first and Catholic by denomination. We like many have seen the light been educated by our recent parish priest who told us informed us and a recent priest stated you are the church, yes you sitting in the pews not me the Bishop’s or the Pope we are just administrators of the sacrements which the church adapted evolved over the centuries and are now the norm. The Bible stories, true or not what matters is the message.

    • If you’re Catholic, as you claim, you are a remarkably faithless and poorly educated one.

      “We the church have since its inception have grown to powerful and demanding respect as the one and only true Church and way to heaven, being saved??”

      The Church is the one and only true Church. And what’s with this “We the church?” The Church is a lot more than “we,” it’s the Body of Christ.
      “But Jesus never started the Catholic Church the Christian faith, movement which later became know as the Holy Roman Catholic Church.”

      Of course Jesus started the Catholic Church.

      “But me I like many are Christians first and Catholic by denomination.”

      That doesn’t even make sense. Catholic *is* Christian.

      “We like many have seen the light been educated by our recent parish priest who told us informed us and a recent priest stated you are the church, yes you sitting in the pews not me the Bishop’s or the Pope we are just administrators of the sacrements which the church adapted evolved over the centuries and are now the norm.”

      I don’t know whether you misunderstood him or whether he actually said that, but your, or his, grasp of the sacraments is pretty poor

      “The Bible stories, true or not what matters is the message.”

      The Church existed before the Bible.

      • Leslie, is the church now, where is it going Pope Francis is trying to get back to the true teachings of Jesus as I wanted his church to become but those in power won’t will not accept the true teaching of Jesus we have seen this looking back of church history our recent popes would have us return to Pre Vatican 2. We have now our litergy in a English language changed again because those in power couldn’t get right the first time thinking this version is better but as our new parish priest has changed things because they are not in the norms or rubrics of the church. So for the last thirty years we have been say the mass wrongly. No we are an all embracing catholic community .

        • So, your contention is that for about 2000 years the Church has been wrong and only now is Pope Francis “trying to get back to the true teachings of Jesus,” and all other popes have been wrong.

          “as I wanted his church to become”

          As you wanted? Ummmm, and you are the arbiter because… why exactly?

          “our recent popes would have us return to Pre Vatican 2.”

          By which you mean Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. You do realize that both of them were actually part of the Second Vatican Council. And gosh, why would anybody want to go back to before the “Spirit of Vatican II” (which as you should know, but probably have no clue, is not the same thing as the documents of the Council) usheered in an era of massive apostacy, declining vocations, and ignorance of Church teachings.

          “We have now our litergy in a English language changed again because those in power couldn’t get right the first time thinking this version is better”

          The original ICEL translation of the Mass was a disgrace – it didn’t actually translate the Latin, but rather changed the words. As to “catholic community” – and you do seem to have major problems with capitalization, don’t you? – I recall seeing a book from the 70’s or so which was a commentary on the Mass originally published in France, but translated into English. The book had to have footnote after footnote giving the actual translation of the Latin, because the English translation didn’t match up with what the words actually said. Some community, when one language’s Mass disagrees with other countries’ – and with the normative Latin.

    • One question you might want to ask yourself: Did the Holy Spirit guide the Church into all truth, as Jesus had promised, or did he intend for many denominations with irreconcilable doctrinal differences?

    • A case study in the need for solid priests who will actually teach the faith and not these rehashed 70’s era errors. Jesus did found the Catholic Church. You are not the Church apart from the Pope and Bishops. That is false. Whoever taught you that was wrong.

  4. Most Eastern Orthodox seminaries in the US are attached to monasteries, e.g. St. Timon’s in Pa. and Holy Trinity in Jordanville, NY. Seminaries offer the spiritual home/retreat so needed by a parish priest as well as an experienced spiritual father who will Still remain in the monastery in years to come when spiritual hurdles arise. In a monastery rvrtything liturgical is fully lived and inculcated in the most timeless manner. Once again, the Western church needs the timeless wisdom of St Benedict for spiritual renewal!

  5. One of the fundamental problems with priestly formation is, precisely, its monastic dimension — hardly a true preparation for the reality of the life of a diocesan priest. For six to eight years, the seminarian will pray with a community of men, eat with them, enjoy their company. The week after his ordination, he will thrown into the lions’ den of parochial life (with all too many “sheep” all too eager to coopt him for their agendas); far more damaging, however, is that he will never have the support of a clerical community — no more prayer in common; hardly a meal together; often, serious theological and liturgical confrontations between the left-over 60s guard and the younger generation of orthodox clergy.
    Further, seminary formation is not given to training shepherds but sheep. No leadership skills are imparted because priestly sheep are easier to handle than priestly shepherds.
    In 1975, I penned an article for Priest magazine, entitled “The Parish: Crucible of Priestly Formation,” calling for seminarians to live in parishes and to commute to universities for their academic education. I was summarily dismissed from the seminary, thereby proving my point!
    Of course, the biggest problem with my idea is that a bishop must be able to find pastors to whom he can entrust candidates for the Sacred Priesthood. One bishop told me, “I don’t have five pastors I could trust with that responsibility.” “Then why do you trust them with thousands of souls as a pastor?” asked I. Silence.

    • I agree with Father.

      I am the product of one of the so called “monastic” seminaries. In the early 90’s it was a hotbed of weird theology, strange personalities and bad behavior. For the most part we were stuck there. This seminary has gotten better over the years but is still an isolated odd place. Secular priest candidates should ideally be formed in the settings where they will serve. St John Vianney Seminary in Denver has seminarians living in former parish convents with formators. They work in parishes and drive to the seminary for classes. (I am not “endorsing” the school, just the concept). Better than wheat fields and and separation for people they will serve.

  6. It must be said that merely having a seminary in a monastery does not guarantee good results. A case in point is Mt. Angel in Oregon under Archbishop Leveda.

  7. It depends on the monastery. Is Meinrad orthodox for instance? If you have a dysfunctional community riddled with theological error and weird spirituality that will not help.

    • If you mean St. Meinrad, judging by the things some of the monks have said to me I can’t believe the seminary is very faithful. A lot of the teaching is done by lay people who on the surface are well educated but I’ve had concerns for a long time. The book The Changing Face of the Priesthood is in the curriculum but I don’t know if it is used as a guide or if it’s used as a bad example.

      I’ve heard outright heresy, such as a Sunday sermon on Jesus’ “faith journey,” which was chock full of adoptionism. The priest then lied when he said the creed because he’d just denied 3/4 of it.

  8. Thank you, Father John, for initiating (or re-initiating) discussion on the idea of monastic pastoral training. I also appreciate the perspective that longs for more practical training, so that new priests can be ready for the variations found in a typical parish. The challenge is to balance the need for community among ministers while providing experience actually doing ministry in a parish. You have prompted me to think how to encourage my pastor to have deep fellowship with the committed of their parish while reaching out to those farther off. I will pray for less isolation and a greater feeling of effectiveness in dealing with our flock.

  9. The proposal makes sense in so far as the priesthood remains reserved to celibate men in the patriarchate of Rome. But the masculinity crisis needs to be addressed first.
    The description given in the essay may fit older, especially Boomer, priests:

    [Many parishes and communities approve of their priest because he is “one of the guys”. So, in some locales, priests aim to become enthusiastic about football and hunting and beer. In other company, they might also take up golfing and learn about the finer points of coffee preparation.]

    But among the younger priests, even those who are more conservative/traditional often there is something missing to their masculinity. I have seen some exceptions to this and perhaps not unsurprisingly many of those candidates for the priesthood have served in the military or had a job that helped them develop masculine virtue. Perhaps “priestly” gravitas should just reflect being a mature man, rather than an affectation for the sake of preserving status and a formal distance from the laity.

    • The “softness” you describe is exactly what I meant in my earlier post about seminarians being trained to be sheep rather than shepherds. Assertive leadership is equated with obnoxious machismo. Another difficulty is the overall feminization of the Church over the past three or four decades.

  10. The apostles appointed deacons in order to devote themselves to prayer and to proclaiming the gospel. The church is the mystical body of Christ. 2162 Council father against 46 voted for the change. Today 99 percent versus 1 percent of Trads condemn everything even judge the new mass to be no mass at all where Christ’s sacrifice is made present and his precious body and blood. Do we see the Holy Spirit’s path? “Surely He continues to bear within himself the seed of authentic unity” ? Saint Francis says to hold nothing back and in the “Imitation of Christ” we read: “the reason why so few become enlightened and inwardly free is because they know not to renounce themselves entirely.”

  11. After the Protestant rebellion the Church was reinvigorated and saved by the seminary system introduced by the Council of Trent. The collapse of that system after Vatican II is destroying the Church,

  12. Fr. Strvinskas, is dead on, on his perspective and knowledge of the 60’s and would say up to the 90’s priest. I was at the end of my 50 year management God Bless career and retired as a Director of major company. I then went in my Counties politics as a County Supervisor of one of the poorest Counties in California Central Valley. Then retired again at a age that I still needed more. Some of my parishioners friends that are on our finance board talked me into helping our parish as Administrative Manager. I have been here for over 9 months now and this position at a large local parish church as tested my faith more than a life time of business management or my political venture. The Pastor and some the Priest here have no idea of life realities, disciplines or concepts. They are manipulated by the sheep for their own ministerial beliefs from 3rd world countries. I have found out the our WWII generation Priest do under reality. In the 70’s we had 80% of our parish needs paid for by our parishioners, now we only have 20% keeping the doors of our whole Parish open. The nepotism here with the ministries have generated are sort of an life insurance policy. Some of these ministries manipulate the word of God into their own agenda. That our priest cannot comprehend.

  13. When all else fails, there is always the Christianity of the New Testament that can be revisited. It is the surest version that I know of. All we need to do is to open up a New Testament at home and start reading. It was written 2000 years ago; but it is more widely available now than it was back then when there was no printing press. It provided me with the instruction on how to get inner peace and strength from God. Both Testaments have this instruction (see Philippians 4:6-7, 1Peter 5:5-7, Proverbs 3:5, Psalms 37:7, 55:22, and Isaiah 26:3-4, 55:7-9). You may not get it from elsewhere. I didn’t.

2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

  1. Seminaries and formation: One priest’s perspective and suggestion -
  2. MONDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit

Leave a Reply to Kevin Walters Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*