Saturday, August 06, 2011

I have a bad feeling about this one

The Church doesn't have a vocations problem. We have an ordination problem. Seminarians face not only the academic requirements but they have to deal with the personalities of their professors, advisors and rector as well. Once when I was in college I wrote a paper excoriating  a Harlem Renaissance era writer, who just happened to have been a hero of my professor's. Oops. She gave me a terrible grade but since I was dating Rocky at the time it really didn't get me down. A seminarian's vocation, on the otherhand could be crushed by a vindictive person. It happens. Seminarians in the wrong diocese or order may find themselves having to endure feminist nuns, anti Catholic psychologists, and allow me to point out the 800 pound gorilla in the room, predatory homosexuals. A good friend of mine left his seminary twenty years ago because his superiors did nothing about a professor priest who was "seducing" students. It broke his heart to leave but staying was unbearable.

So, knowing all this most of us rejoice when we read stories about new priests but at first glance, the  ordination of a divorced and annulled grandfather seems.... uh....a wee bit problematic. I hope everything works out.