New ideas might have saved
Quigley
October 6, 2006
Father Greeley in the
Chicago SunTimes' Daily Southtown |
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They eliminated the parish where I was baptized. They closed the church where I said my first Mass and took out the stained-glass windows. Now they've closed the high school seminary where I began my journey to the priesthood. I understand the need for such measures, but they've wiped out my past and it breaks my heart. |
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You shouldn't go to Quigley Seminary, people told me. You should go to an
ordinary high school, have a normal adolescence (there weren't teenagers in
those days), and find out whether you like girls. I already knew I would
like girls, and the assumption that the teen culture is "normal" was (and
is) patently absurd. Anyway, I learned a lot at this day school seminary,
was inspired by some of the priests who taught me and enjoyed my time there
immensely. I also began to understand the Church's approach to rules.
Smoking was forbidden (I didn't smoke anyway) but the prefects of discipline
would walk by the doors of the washrooms out of which smoke bellowed and
seemingly not notice it. One of them became a bishop. Well, times have changed. The conventional wisdom about a "normal" teenage is accepted by almost everyone, even though high school culture is still patently abnormal and often dangerously so. |
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I wish that before the Church began its epidemic of seminary closings,
someone had asked the reason for the decline in vocations. In Chicago, for
example, there are very few "young" priests anymore and almost none with
Irish names. The Southwest Side Irish -- once the seedbed of vocations --
send few men into the ministry. Why not? One hears many reasons: the importance of sex to the younger generations (as though desire is more demanding today than it ever was or young women more attractive), the much publicized departure of many men from the active ministry, the sex abuse crisis, the social change that seems to have eliminated the priesthood from the list of respectable professions. My own research suggests that the most important recruiters to the priesthood traditionally have been priests themselves. It also suggests that most priests do not attempt to attract young men to follow after them. In fact, some say they will not try to recruit men to the priesthood until Rome permits married priests. It is strange behavior for a group of men who on the average are happier than married Protestant clergy, doctors, lawyers, teachers and even, heaven save us, college professors. Priests are on average the happiest men in America, a secret they are apparently willing to hide from everyone, including themselves. I have been arguing for years that men should be invited to serve in the ministry for limited terms (though they will always be priests), renewable every five or seven or 10 years. If after this period of service they are burned out, can't stand teens or pests or one another or simply want to start families, let them go in peace and gratitude from the active ministry. Many young men would be willing to try the priesthood and discover that they are happy in it. Perhaps we could keep some of the seminaries open. It would seem, however, as a fellow sociologist has suggested to me, that many priests are not interested in any kind of work with teenagers. Professor Christian Smith of the University of North Carolina and now the Golden Dome was surprised in his research on denominations and teens that the commitment of resources and personnel to working with teens was lower in Catholicism than in any other denomination. Perhaps priests are too busy. Perhaps because of "belated" vocations, there are few "young" priests who are close enough in age to teens. Perhaps priests are afraid of the possibility of sex abuse charges, though a half century ago even a young knave like me knew that you had to surround yourself with chaperones. It is surely necessary to reconsider the issue of priestly vocations, to try experiments, perhaps to set up schools for training young men and women for limited-term service in the priesthood and the religious life. That would be much more complicated and perhaps risky. It's easier just to close seminaries.
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