On Friday, Oct. 24, Mount Angel Seminary and The Abbey Foundation of Oregon are presenting the fifth annual Seminary Benefit Dinner. Mount Angel Seminary, located in Marion County, is the largest seminary in these western United States. The seminary provides priestly formation for four religious orders and 31 dioceses. The event will take place at the Oregon Convention Center and, if the friends of the seminary are as loyal this year as they have been in the past, it should be quite a success.
It was Portland’s third archbishop, The Most Rev. William H. Gross, CSSr, who invited the Benedictine monks to provide a seminary which would serve the Catholic dioceses here in the Northwest. But Mount Angel Seminary is not the only place where men preparing for the priesthood here in the Archdiocese of Portland can be found.
First of all, five of our seminarians are placed in parishes for a pastoral year. Five more are studying at the Sacred Heart School of Theology outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Four seminarians have been sent to the Pontifical North American College in Rome. Two of our men are at St. Patrick’s Seminary in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. One is at the American College of Louvain in Belgium. Another is at Bishop White Seminary in Spokane. Sixteen men plus four others whom we cosponsor with the St. John Society are at Mount Angel. Last but not least, nine men are in a pre-formation program at our House of Studies in All Saints Parish. These men, all from Latin America, are studying English at Portland State University to prepare themselves for seminary work, particularly in our growing Hispanic community.
Priestly formation at American seminaries is guided by the Program of Priestly Formation developed and promulgated by our United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. It is reviewed every ten years and has served us very well. There are four dimensions to the Program of Priestly Formation: human, spiritual, academic and pastoral. Albert Cardinal Meyer, who was the Archbishop of Chicago when I was a seminarian, would always say that before a man becomes a priest, we need to make sure he is a good human being, a true Christian in every sense and then, and only then, one called to priestly ministry.
Human formation has received considerable attention in recent times because of some of the problems that have occurred in the lives of clergy. A priest is a public person, called upon to represent the church in worship and in service. He must be a man of integrity and self possession in order to make a gift of himself for the mission of the church. The church looks for men with sound prudential judgment, a sense of responsibility and personal initiative, a capacity for leadership, an ability to establish and maintain wholesome friendships and an ability to work in a collaborative, professional manner with God’s people.
Preparation for celibacy is a very important component of the human formation program in any seminary. This requires a program of instruction, prayerful discernment, dialogue and encouragement. A seminarian needs to understand the nature and purpose of celibate chastity and to embrace it in his life. The goal is to form seminarians into chaste, celibate men who are loving pastors of the people they are called to serve.
Spiritual formation is certainly no surprise when it comes to priestly formation. At the heart of a man’s formation for priesthood is an ability to live in intimate and unceasing union with God the Father through his Son, Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit. A future priest must acquire the listening and learning heart of a disciple. The first apostles spent time with Jesus before He sent them out to others. So must a priest. He must be a man of prayer, with the Eucharist at the very center of his prayer life. Furthermore, if a man is to be configured to Christ, head and shepherd of the church, then he must necessarily be willing to share in the paschal mystery of Jesus, which inevitably involves the cross.
Intellectual formation for the future priest leads him on a path whereby he is able to acquire an even deeper knowledge of the divine mysteries. A future priest must have a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus. He will be a teacher of the faith and so his intellectual formation assumes and prolongs that catechesis that is to be part of every Christian life. But his knowledge is not simply for his personal growth as a disciple. He pursues his studies for the people of God whom he will be called to teach and serve.
Future priests are asked to earn a college degree, be well-versed in the language of the people they will serve, and pursue a four-year rigorous graduate program of theological studies. In addition to dogmatic and moral theology, seminarians also study Scripture, church law, church history, homiletics, parish administration and other cognate studies. The bishops’ Program of Priestly Formation describes seminary theological studies as faith seeking understanding, an approach which is not the same for religious studies or the history of religions. In the seminary the study of theology begins in faith and ends in faith and it must also flow from prayer and lead to prayer.
Finally, pastoral formation is required because the ordained priest is sent to be the pastor of the people and shepherd of the flock, serving in imitation of the Master Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Himself. Here in the Archdiocese of Portland we require our men to spend a year in pastoral formation, working under the direction of an experienced priest in a parish setting. In addition, the seminarians during the time of their studies also devote evenings or weekends to pastoral ministry, developing skills and growing in an appreciation of the other men and women who will be their coworkers. Especially important today for public ministry is a flexibility of spirit which helps a priest relate to people across a number of different cultures as well as theological and ecclesial outlooks. The good priest must put on both the mind and the heart of Christ.
This week Mount Angel Seminary is celebrating its partnership with us in the church’s evangelizing mission. We thank all those who support seminarians and encourage young men to consider priesthood as a vocation. Like yourselves, I am most grateful to the clergy, religious and laity who staff our seminaries and devote themselves to this important work of priestly formation. Our seminarians are a sign of hope for the future. Your support and encouragement really do make a difference.
