Denver, Colo., Aug 26, 2018 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When seminaries aim to form Catholic men to live a chaste, celibate life, it’s a matter of both the right habits and the right perspective: choosing celibacy as a way to show God’s love.
“Celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God is a gift and as Scripture says, not all can accept this teaching, just as not all are called to live it out,” Dr. Christina Lynch, director of psychological services at the Archdiocese of Denver’s St. John Vianney Seminary, told CNA. “Seminary formation is a place of discerning this call and capacity to live it out. The man must discern with his spiritual director if he is called and the Church must also discern if she is calling this man to live this life.”
Father James Mason, President-Rector of the Archdiocese of St. Louis’ Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, reflected on celibacy from the perspective of a priest.
“When someone asks me about celibacy and the priesthood my first response is quite simple: Jesus. My desire to conform myself completely to Jesus and to give my life as he did as a sacrifice for his bride the Church,” he told CNA.
In the academic year 2017-2018, over 3,300 seminarians in the US were enrolled in post-baccalaureate studies, also known as the theologate, for both diocesan and religious orders. There were just under 1,300 college-level seminarians, and 350 enrolled in the three remaining high school seminary programs, according to figures from the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Father Paul Hoesing, who serves as Kenrick-Glennon Seminary’s dean of seminarians and human formation director, told CNA that celibacy is “choosing to be unmarried,” and there are good and bad reasons for making such a choice.
“Some may choose celibacy for the bad reason of disdaining or avoiding marriage,” he said. “The virtue of chastity does not necessarily accompany that choice.”
Citing Christ’s words, Hoesing said that celibacy is “for the sake of the kingdom.” It is a response to God’s sacrificial, enduring love.
“The chaste celibate says: ‘I want to give my life as a gift.’ Both the chaste celibate and the chaste couple can say ‘This is my body given for you’ with undivided and very joyful hearts,” Hoesing said.
“The chaste celibate declares that God’s love is as concrete and satisfying as living a faithful married life. Moreover, because the chaste celibate and the married couple are choosing their way of life as a personal response to God’s love, there is no competition. “
Both celibacy and marriage “make God’s love as evident and fruitful ‘on earth as it is in heaven’,” he said. “Whether married or single, chastity ensures that our sexuality is deeply experienced as a gift and way of communicating free, total and faithful love.”
Lynch said that all people are called to live chastely.
“Living a chaste life enables the person to right order their sexual desires and more fully receive and give the gift of love,” she said. “God created man and woman to live chastely which means to be a self-gift to each other and not use each other for gratification.”
Lynch said Denver’s St. John Vianney Seminary has a “very integrated approach in forming men.”
“We have a program called ‘Formation in Priestly Identity’ that not only addresses living a chaste celibate life but helps form men to be healthy persons who will flourish in life no matter their calling, whether marriage or priesthood,” she said. “The program intentionally addresses many tough issues, and approaches each topic as a team approach incorporating each area of formation: human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral.”
“We begin by understanding what authentic manhood looks like and how one can grow into an authentic man given the distractions in today’s culture,” she said, adding, “chastity and celibacy are counter-cultural.”
The dangers of seminary life include thinking that men can “try to live as sexual beings,” rather than integrating their sexuality into their whole person, Lynch said. This comes amid other trends including excessive use of social media, lack of “real human contact” in face-to-face relationships, and “lack of involvement in communal settings.”
There are also some positive trends.
“Sexual psychology is becoming more aware of the addictive quality of certain sexual behaviors such as pornography, masturbation, and other online relationships,” said Lynch. “There is more of a trend to work on saving marriages rather than divorce.”
Hoesing said lay Christians can provide a model for seminarian formation.
“The healthy, holy, joy-filled married man provides a standard,” he said, resulting in questions like “Could I see this seminarian in a vibrant, life-giving marriage? Does the seminarian enjoy healthy friendships with married men? Does he have real friendships of any depth or maturity at all?”
He saw some danger in a seminary formation that creates a “bubble” between seminarians and families and couples who are developing their vocation. A seminary formation that is too “long and protective” might enable an unrealistic approach to parish life, making some seminarians, priests, and bishops seem removed from “real accountability and responsibility.”
Hoesing warned against an erroneous view of celibacy which sees it as simply a “bachelorhood” in which “marriage was never really considered or an option through circumstances or choice.”
In this case “celibacy is passively endured or drifted into, because marriage may be asking too much of the man’s personality or generosity,” he summarized. In other ways, celibacy is wrongly seen as “simply a discipline” that some rationalize by saying, “The Church requires it, so I imagine God can make it possible.”
Stresses on the “useful” or “practical” effects of celibacy can be “rationalizations for the painful absence of married life.” In Hoesing’s view, these include arguments that celibacy makes one better available to serve God’s people, that celibacy protects potential spouses and children from the difficulties of parish leadership, and that celibacy provides economic efficiencies and avoids practical difficulties for the Church.
“Availability, mobility, and efficiency do not mean intimacy,” he said. “Such negative justifications terminate in a kind of deadly disdain or ignorance for how to receive intimacy from God and others in chaste friendship.”
These errors, whether self-referential or pragmatic, have consequences, said Hoesing, who declared, “chastity is the first victim in the false views of celibacy.” These rationalizations will not promote “the integration of a man’s sexuality.”
Taking a too-practical approach to celibacy sees sexuality as something to be managed, which in turn fosters a false sense of self-reliance. Viewing sexuality as problematic risks playing into self-pity, while viewing it as “simply dangerous” traps a man into self-protection.
Church movements geared towards “intentional community living” or regular faith sharing are an aid to human formation, according to Hoesing.
“When young people learn how to share their faith in a small group or community, they can learn the art of living chastity,” he said. “The virtues, especially the chastity which governs our relational gifts, are best learned with others in a community.”
“Friendship is the school of virtue and chastity in particular,” he said. “While I may have a private life with rich friendships, I cannot have a secret life and real friendships. I will not have shared my heart. Too many unchaste people live in the misery of a self-made aloneness.”
The revival of sex abuse scandals has renewed concerns about seminary life. A Pennsylvania grand jury report, citing records from six diocese, said there were credible accusations against 300 priests for the sexual molestation, groping or rape of 1,000 minors in cases going back seven decades.
In June a New York archdiocesan board ruled credible a claim that Archbishop emeritus Theodore McCarrick of Washington had sexually abused a minor as a priest in the archdiocese. That report led to other accusations of sexual misconduct, including abuse of seminarians and young priests. Two New Jersey dioceses McCarrick had led agreed to make legal settlements in 2005 and 2007 with two men who said they had been sexually assaulted by McCarrick.
McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals in late July, the first American cardinal to do so.
Lynch said a failure of chastity is one reason for the sex abuse crisis, but not the sole reason.
“Abusing another person is the result of being an underdeveloped personality, a disordered personality, it is the lack of development in emotional maturity, stunted in nature,” she said.
For Hoesing, the sex abuse crisis is “a terrific failure of faith.” He suggested the crisis in the Church resulted from “a perfect storm of factors,” including the sexual revolution, systemic fearfulness, and low accountability.
Churches tended to engage in worldly self-protection, seeking to avoid scandal, and ended up brushing off the victims, rather than taking a gospel approach. Legal advice at the time included a non-disclosure or confidentiality agreement, which was intended to protect victims but ended up protecting abusers, he said. Abusers were sent to psychological facilities and repeatedly “treated and released.”
There is also the problem of dissenting theologians who, while rejecting abuse, “still blindly excuse or remain complicit in relativistic immorality,” Hoesing charged.
“Bad theology results in bad pastoral practices, and these can become a playground for perpetrating greater deviance,” he said.
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Why, if McCarrick has been laicized, is he living in Missouri and at a facility operated by the Servants of the Paraclete? Who’s footing the bill? Is this another instance of the faithful of the Church being hoodwinked by our cynical hierarchy?
Who says he’s in Missouri? Nobody seems to know exactly where he is. I hope the cops can find him and take him away. He will have multiple opportunities for penance between now and death. Hope he doesn’t blow them by denying he did anything wrong. Hell is too horrible to contemplate for more than a few minutes.
The lawsuit filed in MA against him said so.
Who says he’s in Missouri? Nobody seems to know exactly where he is. I hope the cops can find him and take him away.
Wellesley Police charge McCarrick with assault in case dating to 1970s
BOSTON (CNS) — The Boston Globe reported July 29 that police in the Boston suburb of Wellesley have charged former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick with three counts of indecent assault and battery on a person over 14 in a criminal complaint filed by Wellesley Police in a district court in nearby Dedham, Massachusetts.
A summons has been issued ordering McCarrick, now 91, to appear at the court for arraignment Aug. 26.
The Globe reported that McCarrick is now living in Missouri. The address listed for McCarrick in the court filings is the Vianney Renewal Center in Dittmer, Missouri, located in Jefferson County, a suburban county of St. Louis on the eastern side of the state.(emphasis added)
The Vianney Renewal Center is a treatment center for Catholic clergy with sexual or other disorders.
According to its website, it’s a ministry coordinated by the Servants of the Paraclete, which collaborates with sponsoring diocesan and religious communities “to provide a safe and supportive environment for the rehabilitation and reconciliation of priests and religious brothers.”
Last year, the Jefferson County Leader, a weekly newspaper, reported the Dallas police arrested an ex-priest at the center on charges of aggravated sexual assault of a child in North Texas that took place in 1989. The ex-priest had been laicized in 2002.
Why Is This Catholic Institution Sheltering a Laicized Serial Sexual Abuser?
Media reports describing criminal charges recently brought against Theodore McCarrick have revealed that he has been living at Vianney Renewal Center in Ditmer, Missouri which is owned and operated by the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete (CSP).
Although some have reported that McCarrick is paying his own way at the center, the question remains why McCarrick is being allowed to reside at a facility owned by the Catholic Church? McCarrick is now officially a lay person, not a cleric. CSP’s mission is to serve troubled priests, not lay persons.
Some have speculated that the powerful U.S. prelates are trying to effectively keep McCarrick under house arrest because he knows too much about sexual depravity in the hierarchy. Faithful Catholics deserve answers, especially given the fact they have financed most of the payouts due to clerical abuse over the past 40 years.
Background on the Servants of the Paraclete
CSP is a religious congregation dedicated to ministering to Catholic clergy with personal difficulties. The organization was founded in 1947 by Fr. Gerald Fitzgerald in Jemez Springs, New Mexico.
Fr. Fitzgerald started CSP to assist priests who were struggling with alcohol and substance abuse problems, but soon began receiving priests who had sexually abused minors. Initially, Fr. Fitzgerald attempted to treat such priests using the same spiritual methods that he used with others. But by 1948, Fr. Fitzgerald established a policy whereby he refused to take priests who were sexually attracted to children. The policy was changed after Fitzgerald’s death in 1969.
In a 1964 letter to Bishop Joseph Durick of Nashville, Tennessee, Fr. Fitzgerald expressed “growing concern” about the dramatic change in the nature of problems that were being referred to his order:
May I take this occasion to bring to your attention what is a growing concern to many of us here in the States. When I was ordained, forty three years ago, homosexuality was a practically unknown rarity. Today it is rampant among men. And whereas seventeen years ago eight out of ten problems here [at the Paraclete facility, Via Coeli] would represent the alcoholic, now in the last year or so our admission ratio would be approximately 5-2-3: five being alcoholic, two would be what we call “heart cases” (natural affection towards women) and three representing aberrations involving homosexuality. More alarming still is that among these of the 3 out of 10 class, 2 out of 3 have been young priests.
Fr. Fitzgerald became increasingly convinced that such priests could not be cured, could not be trusted to maintain celibacy and should be laicized. He vehemently opposed returning sexual abusers to duties as parish priests. Some bishops chose to ignore Fr. Fitzgerald’s recommendations, preferring instead to rely on the advice of medical and psychological experts who asserted that treatment was feasible.
CSP was forced to consolidate its operation in Dittmer, Missouri after a series of lawsuits related to sexually abusive priests that had been treated at its facilities. It has been subject of numerous news reports accusing it of essentially becoming a ‘dumping ground’ for sexually abusive priests. Here is a sample of some of the priests who received treatment at CSP facilities:
John Anthony Salazar Jimenez
Edmond Parrakow
Gerald B Fessard
Lawrence Joseph LJ Lovell
John F. Fitzpatrick
Herbert J. McElroy
Peter E Garcia
Michael Stephen Baker
Yusaf Dominic
McCarrick may have been laicized but his acolytes (or “nephews”) are still powerful within the Church, including Cardinal Kevin Farrell (his former Auxiliary who shared a home with him for 6 years) who is Camaralengo, Cardinal Wilton Gregory (who is the current Archbishop of DC), Cardinal Blaise Cupich (of Chicago), Cardinal Joseph Tobin (of Newark, another former McCarrick diocese, Bishp Robert McElroy (of San Diego) all of whom were nobodies until they came under McCarrick’s patronage.
Anyone remotely connected to the McCarrick network needs to be removed from office.
I couldn’t agree with you more….. as lay people have to speak up — Not that I am agree with the way liberals go about speaking up like(BLM) but we need to be more active and clean up our beloved Catholic Church.I pray for good priests.St. Vianney help us.
If the hierarchy of the Church had set out intentionally to destroy the confidence that the faithful have in the Church leadership, they could not have done a better job. How many knew what this creep and others like him were doing and turned a blind eye? Is there a real man among them? Had I been a pastor and received a valid complaint regarding sexual abuse involving one of my priests, I would have borrowed Christ’s whip for the moneychangers before I called the police. They need more real men in the priesthood, but unfortunately, many parents are afraid to encourage their boys to become priests since clowns like McCarrick turned the seminaries into perverted fishing ponds. Pray, clean house, then move forward.
Maybe powerful laity were also protecting McCarrick. Could he have been doing off-the-books diplomacy for our government?
Michael,
It is SATAN who has intentionally set out to destroy our Lord’s vineyard, and it begin with the slaughter of the Innocents at Bethlehem. For 2000 plus years we have century after century of seeing how Satan has preyed upon men and women’s sinful weaknesses to divide Our Lord’s Church. Sadly, the recent great sex scandal of many in the Hierarchy is nothing new to the Holy Mother Church. And I take great consolation and hope in our Lord Jesus’ great Holy Ascension proclamation: “The gates of hell will not overtake my Church and know that I am with you all till the end of the Age”. AMEN TO THAT!
He just earned to sit at the right hand of Francis along with Martin ,night night babe and a host of other well fed privileged” men”in red hats. Yukkk.😡while good men like cardinal Sarah mueller Burke etc going about righting their wrong
I would say: May God in His great mercy forgive this carina all his sins but I am not sure if he ever seriously repented. But using the sacrament of confession to lure young boys into sin it is a grave sin. Lord have mercy upon his soul. It incomprehensible how a bishop or a priest may use their ecclesiastical authority to induce people into sin. My unanswered question is why so many men and women kept a sexual abuse hidden and not disclose it immediately. I understand probably to avoid embarrassment and shame, but in a certain way these victim have some guilt because they cooperated to the invitation to sin. Many women accused men for sexually abusing or harass them but I always question their part in this violation of human dignity. If there is no cohers force, then is a cooperation on the abused person. These sad and unacceptable circumstance are very complex.
I would have to speak my heart, always heart breaking to hear about sins in church and sexual abuse. I wnt to ensure and remind all nomatter what gets coverd up or who hides, Truth be told one day we all face our sins and crimes and stand before Jesus nobody gets away!