Update

[Theologian in Training]

Crux,

Before anyone can answer your question, you should be able to answer one: why do you want to be a priest anyway? To me, from what I have read, it sounds like priesthood is just another job to you, and that you want to be able to live your life as you want but get "to be a priest" while you do it. There are more than a few of those "worldly" priests and, to be honest, we don't need another. I have priest friends that are more on vacation than they are in the parish, because, my guess, is their view is the same you share. Yet, when we lay down on the floor, before the bishop and the Church, we are dying to ourselves, giving everything up, including our independence and our time.

When someone calls at 8PM or 1AM, I can't tell them I can't come because I am in bed or that they are infringing on my free time, I have to go whenever and wherever I am needed. When someone wants to hear confession, when I have a hundred other things to do, I can tell them to come back, risking their souls, or I can hear their confession and put aside my other tasks. See, ordination is not inducting you into a club or giving you a paycheck, it is entrusting you with the care of souls. That means that their soul is in our hands, if you want a job description, that is it. What that means then is that, whether you like it or not, you really do have to die to yourself, you really do have to make sacrifices, you really do have to put yourself aside. That is not romanticism, that is reality. Granted, priests do like to think they can negotiate their time, treasure and talent, but, honestly, they are only fooling themselves, because, in the end, as I have seen more than once, God has the final say, because you are His, when you are consecrated, whether you like it or not.

Personally, from what you have said, I don't know that you have a vocation, you may like priesthood for what you have seen, but I fear you have only seen the stuff that would scandalize rather than inspire. I am not trying to make a judgment, but, rather, an observation.

I do, however, agree with the others, you might look for a spiritual director before trying to pursue a vocation. A guide on the road to discernment is never a bad thing, and, whether you like it or not, they keep us humble as we walk the path God has chosen for us.

God bless,

Fr. Brian

[CruxOfTheMatterAgain]

"Before anyone can answer your question, you should be able to answer one: why do you want to be a priest anyway?"

That simply isnt true, Father. I described something, and asked if anyone knew places that would suit me. It's a simple "No" or "Yes, for example..." question that shouldnt require any additional information on my part. It's like asking where First Street is and having the person grill you on why you want to go there and what the meaning of life is. It's well intended, I'm sure, but this sort of officiousness is very frustrating.

A few people have given me some VERY good leads via PM. The people posting publicly, however, seem to be more concerned with dissecting my motives and setting themselves up as their own self-appointed gatekeepers to the priesthood. The way people are refusing to just answer the question in a straightforward manner, and are instead cross-examining me and and attempting to control information is very creepy, and very much like the dynamics I fear exist in many seminaries.

Luckily, it looks like there are some places like I describe after all, and it's a shame that phatmassers try to cover up their existence because of a narrow ideological agenda about how cult-like vocations are supposed to be.

Edited November 10, 2009 by CruxOfTheMatterAgain

[Theologian in Training]

[quote name='CruxOfTheMatterAgain' date='09 November 2009 - 09:19 PM' timestamp='1257815987' post='1999239']
"Before anyone can answer your question, you should be able to answerone: why do you want to be a priest anyway?"

That simply isnt true, Father. I described something, and asked if anyone knew places that would suit me. It's a simple "No" or "Yes, for example..." question. A few people have given me some VERY good leads via PM. The people posting publicly, however, seem to be more concerned with dissecting my motives and setting themselves up as their own self-appointed gatekeepers to the priesthood. The way people are refusing to just answer the question in a straightforward manner, and are instead cross-examining me and and attempting to control information is very creepy, and very much like the dynamics I fear exist in many seminaries. Luckily, it looks like there are some places like I describe after all, and it's a shame that phatmassers try to cover up their existence because of a narrow ideological agenda about how vocations are supposed to be.
[/quote]

What's not true? Also, you come to see that no seminary is perfect and there is more flexibility in many of them than you might think. For example, in my sem, we could go out whenever and wherever we wanted after prayers. We also had parish assignments and so we would not get back until 9 or 10 sometimes

[HisChild]

[quote name='CruxOfTheMatterAgain' date='09 November 2009 - 06:19 PM' timestamp='1257815987' post='1999239']


Luckily, it looks like there are some places like I describe after all, and it's a shame that phatmassers try to cover up their existence because of a narrow ideological agenda about how cult-like vocations are supposed to be.
[/quote]


Wow, it would seem that you have now become a bit paranoid or turned conspiracy theorist on top of everything else with your cover up theories. NO ONE on this thread has EVER said we even KNOW of a seminary that might be what you describe but we're covering up their existence because we've got it out for you. In fact, several posts have clearly pointed out that we don't believe you'd find what you were looking for (reading between the lines: we don't know of its existence).

Unreal that you think that because we don't agree with you that we're like some cartoon villain malevolently hiding all the 'good' seminaries from you. As if general posters have that much power over your ability to glean information. Your thought processes would actually be quite funny if it wasn't so sad.

Coverups, indeed.

Edited to add: In your last couple of posts you aver that we shouldn't have given you any advice because you never asked for it and we should have simply said 'yes' or 'no'. If you did not want us to comment on the 'why' of your thoughts, if would have been much more prudent of you to not post a 1/2 page of all your VERY emphatic reasonings of why you were looking for what you were looking. Since you want to place a script in the 'neurotic phatmassers' telling us all what we should have said, I will turn it around to you and ask if it would not have been better for you to simply ask if we knew of any seminary that allowed for a decent amount of autonomy and left it at that, instead of immediately going into a critical thesis of why all those other seminaries are wrong. And your first posts DID state they were wrong in so many words. Let me quote: "I'm hoping to find an orthodox seminary that treats their men like independent adults, instead of like children at a boarding school. " and "That whole atmosphere really creeps me out and cramps my style." and of course "But does anyone know any seminaries that would be more free and independent and treat me more like an adult in terms of living my life, like I was treated at University (and, frankly, at home before that even)? Many seminaries, even diocesan, seem to be very cloying and sorta repressive still, like it's boot-camp or something. Curfews, limits on going off-campus, limits on outside contact, remote locations, etc." You may not have said those words 'they are wrong' but you certainly never said 'they are good, I'm sure, but not for me'.

Add that to your posts a couple years ago which started out with 'terribly disillusioned... are they all so weird', what in the world did you expect others to think?

Edited November 10, 2009 by HisChild

[organwerke]

Well, first of all... my compliments to His Child for her (?) last post: it was really magnificent! And you said perfectly what puzzle me, for I can't understand, actually, what Cruxof etc wants!
If I read his simple question...I don't find anything wrong in it (only, as I said, I'm sorry I'm not able to help him since I don't live in the US so I don't know any American seminary.)
But when he starts to write very long posts with very long sermons (in this he is already very good ) I don't understand where he wants to arrive.
Everyone here is free, Crux, just as you demand for you, to tell everything he thinks.
And nobody here is forced to accomplish you. Because, if you ask me where the 11 street is, I can ask you where are you going simply because if you go in a certain point there is a route to follow, while to another point there is another route.
But, if you start to tell that I shouldn't care where you are going, and so on, I could at last ask you: "Why don't you buy a map and go there by yourself instead of asking me"?
I repeat that I can understand what is your problem but let me say that you seem very little able to listen to what other persons are telling to you, and you misunderstand others very easily!
But I'd like to add another thing, and this is more addressed to Hope Floats, especially whan he says:

[i]This sort of "freelance priesthood" negotiating for contracts and assignments with the dioceses might make some here very uncomfortable, as I'm sure you can guess. Some people around here have really bought into the Institutional model you describe, but let me tell you bishops short on priests are always glad to get one of these freelance guys for even just a few years. Some people on here are probably already scandalized[/i]

Well, if you really want to guess, this sort of priesthood doesn't scandalize me: it makes me very angry, and this is a big difference and I explain you why.
I know very well, unfortunately, the difference between idealism, and reality. I know very well there are plenty of priests that, for example, become priests only because they can have an esier career, not only a clerical career, but also in Universities and so on, to be introduced in some influential frienships and so on...
Do you recognize this?
I don't know, I only know that these priests exist, and oh if they exist!
I am very often in contact with priests...and how many times it happens that some persons who have very fewer titles in comparison with many other persons I know, are helped and protected only because they have a plenty of money or influential acquaitnaces?
And this thanks to that sort of priest you like so much and you praise so much!

But finally...I don't matter at all if you, Crux etc. are going to be priests, nor where you want to study. On the contrary, I am happy for you if you want to be. I only wish that you become good priests, and don't think only to your personal advantages as often reading you, you seem to do.

[humbleheart]

[quote name='CruxOfTheMatterAgain' date='09 November 2009 - 04:54 PM' timestamp='1257782046' post='1998774']
Yes, but it doesnt work the other way around. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. A priest needs to be holy, but he also does need to be competent. In religious life, I've seen a sort of idealism replace any sort of pragmatism many places. And contemplatives, especially, can afford that, I guess. They dont really need people to competent on a practical level, as their sole goal is personal holiness.[/quote]

Leaving aside the misconceptions about religious life (pragmatism is an important quality in any monastery), it's important to realise that there is no such thing as 'personal holiness'. Whatever holiness a contemplative has is of benefit and blessing to the whole Church. Their skills may not have any impact beyond the walls of their monasteries, but their holiness will. I have an icon on my shrine that was written by a very gifted Carmelite sister. Comparatively few people will know of her icon-work, but countless people will have benefited from the prayers that go into that work, even if they don't even know of Sister's existence.

The same is true for every last one of us and especially true for priests, who are able to offer the sacrifice of the Mass, the most profound prayer that we have. It isn't your skills or your competencies that count when you stand before that altar. A priest needs to be able to forget himself for the sake of Christ and the good of others. If you can do that, the effects of your ministry will be felt in some surprising places - even if you're in a small country parish where only a handful of people know your name.

[quote]Parish priests, on the otherhand, you can't treat that way. You CANNOT just say, "As long as they're holy, that's all that matters" like you can moreso with a contemplative. If a parish priest is holy, but totally incompetent, or creepy, or dull, or awkward interpersonally, etc...then that definitely [i]does[/i] matter. Yet many current seminaries seem designed on the model of religious life, to ensure holiness (which is a good thing in itself). But if they dont correspondingly weed-out (or funnel into monasteries) those who lack the interpersonal skills and competence needed to live a secular vocation like the diocesan priesthood (or worse, positively scare such people away)...then is a half-baked system. Holiness need not be opposed to those other skills, and seminaries dont have to sacrifice the latter in favor of the former; there are ways to train priests in holiness without turning the seminaries into pseudo-monasteries.[/quote]

Crux, in my eyes your interpersonal skills leave a lot to be desired. Perhaps it's simply that I'm 'institutionalised' and unable to recognise the spirit of an independent American adult when I see one, but a lot of what you write comes across as arrogant, condescending, and - in your last post - slightly paranoid. Fortunately for you, seminaries don't use my standards as criteria when they're admitting their candidates. That's as it should be, because my standards are based on my own finite perceptions and preferences. It could be that you will make a very fine priest, and I just don't see it.

Equally, it could be that the men whom you are so ready to dismiss as 'neurotic' or to class as having 'defective psyches' are very fine priests in their own way. Our parish priest seems dull to me, and I rather dread being cornered by him at a parish function or having to call in at the presbytery for some reason. But it could be that other parishioners find what he likes to talk about extremely interesting. Once again, it's all a question of taste. And even though sparkling conversation and flowing repartee aren't really Father's strong points, he has brought qualities of his own to the parish. Presumably we must need these qualities more than we need a talented conversationalist, otherwise God would have sent us one.

That is the point that people here are trying to drive home: priesthood is a calling, and to be a calling there has to be someone making the call. In this case, it's Our Lord. He is the One who decides where you go and what you do. As the centurion described it: "I also am a man subject to authority, having soldiers under me;and I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes, and to another, 'Come,' and hecomes, and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it." Every Christian life should be lived in perfect obedience to Christ, and a priest has a special responsibility to demonstrate that through his example to his parishioners. What kind of message are the people you encounter going to take away from their 'freelance priest'?

A priest should be rooted in his community, his responsibilities, and above all, his love for Jesus - and the idea that he could just take off for an assignment that looks better to him when he gets bored or feels as though he might like a change is very disturbing. It's even more disturbing to suggest that bishops ought to be grateful to get their hands on such priests during this time of shortage. That implies that you are the one making the contribution, doing everybody a favour - and you aren't. You have absolutely nothing of your own to offer, apart from what Christ gives you.

The main thing that puzzles me about your posts is your mention of how orthodox and traditional you are. But how is it orthodox to see the priesthood as a secular career and to make a catalogue of your own wants before you even set foot in the seminary? How orthodox is it to label people you don't know as defective and neurotic, or to accuse them of conspiring to keep information from you? Orthodoxy is about more than choosing plainchant over guitar at Mass. It is about how you live your life. And I would much rather be a parishioner at a church with modern music at its 'awful' liturgy, to use your adjective, than someone at a church with all the beauties of the Latin Mass - and a priest who openly acknowledged that he was 'freelance' and there only for as long as it suited him.

It is the custom on Holy Thursday for priests to kneel and wash people's feet. With that mentality, would you be able to kneel down in front of one of your parishioners and do that for them? Honestly? I doubt it, because unless you are prepared to put aside your own wants for their sake, you are secretly of the belief that you are more important than they are.

[quote]Once again, my point was practical, not ideological. Specific and concrete, not abstract and theoretical.

Namely, I wanted to know (and still want to know) if anyone knew of any seminaries that allow for greater independence and secular life, instead of being these sorts of pseudo-monastic institution. Does anyone know any places or groups that train men for the priesthood...that are theologically and liturgically conservative, but which live in the more open "modern" way more typically associated with liberal orders after Vatican II?? A seminary where I could live like the grown-up I am, rather than being institutionalized like a child at boarding school.
[/quote]

It [i]is[/i] abstract and theoretical, because no such seminary exists. In the words of Francis Gray, "You can come as you are and leave behind what you can, but you may not stay as you were or do as you will." That holds true for the Christian life in general, but it is especially pertinent to the seminary. Yet you are looking for a place where you will not be asked to do anything that doesn't sit well with you, where you can write off obedience as something that belongs only to the religious life, where you hope to get by on your skills alone - skills that God could take away from you at any moment. Orthodox or liberal, there are no seminaries like that.

[quote]But dont with-hold information about them from ME just because you ideological disagree with how they live or because they dont conform to YOUR ideas of what a seminary "should" be.
[/quote]

I think that sums up why I have difficulty imagining you as a priest. The ME is always in capitals.

As I said at the beginning, it is fortunate that my mind and perception are limited. I will pray for you and I hope that God makes you into an excellent priest if that is what He wants your life for.

[MithLuin]

Let me explain it this way. People who think 'a certain way' about the priesthood and seminaries are likely to know about and recommend seminaries that...fit that mold. There is no 'conspiracy' to it. This is a public forum, open to those discerning or in some other way interested in discernment. It is not a professional database of all things vocation related. It is seriously limited to the experiences of the posters. The idea is that if we all pool our experiences and resources, we'll be enriched.

It seems obvious that many suggestions will be less than helpful. Not what the poster wanted, or oftentimes, not even what the one doing the suggesting thought. In a recent thread, a discerner was looking for a community that would be open to considering an applicant with mild epilepsy. Some of the communities that were recommended promptly replied that they did not think it would be a good match. Is that the fault of the posters here, that they didn't know that? It was hardly meant maliciously, but yes, some of the suggestions were less than helpful.

If you have gotten some helpful suggestions by PM, great! Look into them.

But I will say that the way seminary generally works is that you apply to your diocese, and they decide where to send you for seminary. They are paying for it, after all. If you already have an undergrad degree in philosophy, you would probably go straight to major seminary. Having an idea of which seminary you'd like to attend may enter into the conversation, but most dioceses send *all* their seminarians to a handful of seminaries - maybe 2 or 3. So, if you intend to stay and serve in your area, you might not have many options in the long run. Your diocesan vocations director can clarify how this works if you want to know the details for a particular diocese.