With sexual abuse in the Church hitting the global headlines, many wonder how seminarians are prepared for the vocation of celibacy. Those responsible for this key work in Perth opened up in an exclusive interview with The Record.
By Anthony Barich
Applicants are rigorously screened for entry into St Charles Seminary in Guildford while celibacy and human sexuality are not shirked during formation, its rector told The Record.
“Celibacy and human sexuality are not swept under the carpet but openly and calmly discussed and integrated into all aspects of formation here (at the seminary),” its rector Mgr Kevin Long said in a joint statement with Fr Brian McKenna, Archdiocesan Vicar for Clergy and St Charles’ First Year Formator.
Answering questions from The Record in light of the sexual abuse scandal sweeping Europe and local secular media linking the issue to celibacy, the two senior priests said that sexuality is a gift, not a temptation.
“But a priest and seminarian needs to be realistic – daily prayer, love of the Mass, the Blessed Sacrament, regular Confession and devotion to Our Lady, self-acceptance and self-care, regular and genuine spiritual direction, warm and authentic friendships, adequate rest, the avoidance of circumstances which would threaten chastity – are all essential for a priest and seminarian,” they said.
“In a word, the priest and seminarian, under God’s grace, seeks to be an authentic disciple of Jesus, the compassionate priest, ready to share the Gospel with others through word and example.”
Anyone applying to the seminary for the Archdiocese of Perth is required to have an extensive interview with University of Notre Dame Australia Professor Martin Philpot, who prepares a detailed psychological report which is forwarded to the selection panel “which most seriously examines the report”, Mgr Long and Fr McKenna said.
“A candidate would not be accepted if the psychological report suggested serious difficulties or an inability to embrace all aspects of the priestly life.”
A year long course is also conducted by Dr Ron Moffat – who built Curtin University’s social work and counselling courses, and his wife Christine, who majored in Psychology – in personal development and psychological awareness. Spiritual direction is compulsory and psychological help available and encouraged where necessary.
Dr Moffat said he first teaches the students how to gain an understanding of themselves and their own method of communication, before then teaching them how to deal with others.
Fr McKenna and Cenacle Sr Ngaire Roil have two sessions a week with first year students where such matters are openly acknowledged. Guest speakers, including Professor Mary McComish, a foundation member of Notre Dame’s School of Law; the Archdiocese’s Professional Standards director Peter Messer, and priests who have struggled with these issues, are also part of this programme.
“As society and the Church struggle to understand and prevent such abuses, so the formation here at St Charles reflects these developments and best expected practice,” Mgr Long and Fr McKenna said.
The seminary also confronts controversial issues, having, as a group, listened to and discussed ABC Radio National’s programme What’s wrong with the Catholic Church? hosted by Stephen Crittenden on 7 March on the supposed link between priestly celibacy and the abuse scandal.
On this programme, Fr Anthony Percy, Rector of Sydney’s Good Shepherd Seminary, detailed the training his students receive to prepare them for life as a priest.
“Recent sexual scandals are openly discussed,” Mgr Long and Fr McKenna said.
“Celibacy and human sexuality are not swept under the carpet but openly and calmly discussed and integrated into all aspects of formation here. As one of the students recently said, ‘I value the realism, depth and honesty of the formation offered here at St Charles’.
“The daily experience of mandated solitude and silence is hopefully an opportunity for our students to experience both loneliness and aloneness.
“Priests and seminarians are men of flesh and blood, they share with all their brothers and sisters the unique gift of sexuality and need for human intimacy. These are precious gifts from God which are to be treasured, nurtured and integrated into all dimensions of one’s priestly life.”
When asked how screening and training of seminarians had changed in response to new understandings of immaturity and isolation, Fr Percy told ABC Radio that “in terms of screening, it’s been quite dramatic”.
“You can’t get in here without a psychological report … which has been a requirement for eight
or nine years … and copious references from people who know the person,” said Fr Percy, who authored Theology of the Body Made Simple, now in its second print run.
This report, however, won’t pick up personality disorders, which will only be observed in the first two years of formation. “But other issues are often brought to the fore, (like) family of origin issues, personal, cultural and sexuality issues, and we can work on that.”
The first year at Good Shepherd is dedicated to finding out “what’s in their hearts”, Fr Percy said, so a major course is undertaken on the basic human emotions of a person. Much work is done on pastoral counselling by a male and female psychologist on campus, to discover how they become sensitive to the needs of others.
“The first step is you need to become sensitive to your own needs, in the sense of who you are as a human being,” he said.
The second year, he added, is devoted to psycho-sexual development. As to follow-up spiritual and pastoral support once seminarians are ordained priests, Fr Joseph Parkinson, Director of the Archdiocesan Clergy Life and Ministry Board, told The Record that there is at present no programme operating. All priests are meant to have a spiritual director, he said, but the Pastoral Support Programme operating over the past five years has stopped while Mgr Long settled into his role and developed a strategic plan for the seminary having started his six-year term in 2009.
Fr Parkinson said the pastoral support programme for priests ordained less than five years will be reshaped to integrated more with seminary training, and developed over the next two years.
“It is concerning (that there is no pastoral support programme) … the Archbishop is very concerned we offer newly ordained priests substantial pastoral and personal support over the early years of their ministry, as it’s only after ordination that you learn to be a priest,” said Fr Parkinson, who was ordained in Perth in 1981, having spent two years at St Charles before it closed at the end of 1975 then completing his studies at Adelaide’s St Francis Xavier Seminary. He also did post-graduate studies in moral theology in Rome.
“The seminary doesn’t prepare you for priesthood, it prepares you for ordination. You don’t learn to be a priest until you’re in a parish doing it, and that’s when support is needed by all priests in first few years,” said Fr Parkinson, a moral theologian who is also director of the LJ Goody Bioethics Centre.
“It’s like any other profession … you can get a medicine degree but you don’t know what being a doctor is really all about until you actually start working as one.”
The Archdiocese of Sydney has a five year programme where newly ordained priests return to the seminary once a month to receive input from a spiritual director which, Fr Percy said, “is a very significant thing”.
He said that once the seminarians have made a commitment at the seminary, of crucial importance is teaching them to ensure they have a proper rest, or day off as priests. Many priests around Australia have for a long time been protective of Monday – their day off.
“Then we teach them to have very wholesome friendships, particularly among themselves as brothers in the priesthood to be,” Fr Percy said.
“We make sure they’ve got different hobbies and things.
“We try and teach them through a whole series of seminars to try to manage their time well, so that their days aren’t turning into 14 or 15-hour days, that their days are reasonable. In that way, they’ll work effectively and they’ll minister effectively.
“We try to teach them that they’re not the Messiah. We try as best we can to give them the human and spiritual formation, then of course it’s up to them.”