A
critical response to “Not Every Priest Should Be Allowed Near a Seminary
Formation Team”
Introduction
The article (certainly with AI assistance!), found on WhatsApp titled “Not Every Priest Should Be Allowed Near a Seminary Formation Team” uploaded by Sr. Jaisy SMI, is right about several things. Harshness passed off as discipline is real, and so are formators who read every struggle as a lack of vocation. Its closing line, however, gives the game away: “competence in understanding the human person must become the essential part of priestly formation itself.” Its remedy is more training in psychology, pedagogy, counselling and emotional intelligence, and it never mentions grace, prayer, discernment, the Holy Spirit or the mystery of a vocation.
The text also reads as machine-assembled. It repeats the same thesis in
its second-last and last paragraphs, leans on stock analogies (pilots, doctors,
canon lawyers), and offers rhetorical triplets (“Not every silence is
humility…”) in place of argument. The article claims “human beings are not
machines,” yet it proposes a formation that is largely technical: acquire the
right competencies and the seminarian’s “problem” will be solved.
This response does not reject the human sciences. It argues that they are
servants of formation, not its foundation. A seminarian is a mystery before he
is a case, and the Church’s own documents say so.
1. What the Article Gets Right, and Where
the Church Agrees
The Church has never taught that formators may ignore the human person. Pastores
Dabo Vobis insists that “in order that his ministry may be humanly as
credible and acceptable as possible, it is necessary that the priest should
mould his human personality in such a way that it becomes a bridge and not an
obstacle for others in their meeting with Jesus Christ” (John Paul II, Pastores
Dabo Vobis [PDV], 1992, n. 43).
Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis (RFIS, Congregation
for the Clergy, 2016) likewise treats human formation as “the necessary
foundation” of the whole edifice, and it takes maturity, affectivity and
freedom seriously (cf. RFIS, nn. 89–100). The Congregation for Catholic
Education’s Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and
Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood (2008) also permits a prudent
use of psychological expertise where it is needed.
So the article’s concern is legitimate. The disagreement is over ordering
and proportion, and over what a formator is fundamentally for.
2. The Article’s Central Flaw: A Reduced
Anthropology
The article’s opening sentence treats the seminarian as a bundle of
“emotions, fears, family wounds, psychological struggles, temperamental
differences… hormonal realities.” All of these are real. But the list is
missing the centre of the person: the soul made for God, called by name, and
marked by grace.
The Second Vatican Council teaches that “only in the mystery of the
incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light” (Gaudium et Spes,
1965, n. 22). Man is not finally explained by psychology or any other science.
He is explained by Christ, and he remains a mystery even after every diagnostic
category has been applied. Some consequences follow from this.
•
A vocation is not a personality profile. It is a
call, and its origin is God, not the seminarian’s temperament (cf. PDV, n. 35).
•
Grace is not reducible to emotional health. The
saints include the anxious, the scrupulous, the introverted and the wounded.
Formation must not treat a woundedness that grace is already transfiguring as
though it were a defect to be managed.
•
Mystery cannot be “solved.” The article’s
language of understanding, perceiving and mastering the human mind slides into
a managerial mindset. The Church asks formators instead to stand before
something sacred.
Pope Francis expresses this posture well: the art of accompaniment
“teaches us to remove our sandals before the sacred ground of the other” (Evangelii
Gaudium, 2013, n. 169). One removes one’s sandals before a mystery. One
does not do so before a case file.
3. The Missing Centre: Spiritual Formation
as the “Core”
The article never uses the word “spiritual” except as a pejorative
(“pious vocabulary,” “spiritual slogans”). The Church’s documents give it a
very different place.
•
Optatam Totius teaches that seminarians must be
trained “to live in intimate and unceasing union with the Father through His
Son Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit” (Vatican II, Optatam Totius [OT],
1965, n. 8).
•
Pastores Dabo Vobis describes spiritual
formation as “the core which unifies and gives life to his being a priest and
his acting as a priest” (PDV, n. 45).
•
RFIS places the spiritual dimension at the heart of the
formative process, alongside the human, intellectual and pastoral dimensions,
and it grounds all four in discipleship and configuration to Christ the Good
Shepherd (cf. RFIS, nn. 28–34, 101–115).
The four dimensions are meant to be integrated, and none of them is meant
to become the “essential part” that governs the rest. An article that elevates
the human dimension above the others has quietly reversed the Church’s order.
4. Psychology Is an Auxiliary Tool, Not the
Norm
The Church has been explicit here, and the article ignores it. The 2008 Guidelines
on psychology repeatedly stress that psychological expertise is an aid
to the discernment carried out by the Church’s own formators, and that it
cannot replace spiritual direction, the judgement of the formation team, or the
discernment of the bishop or superior. The Guidelines also caution that the
psychological approach must be consonant with a Christian anthropology, since
some schools of psychology rest on assumptions about the human person that
Catholic teaching cannot accept.
This point matters. The article speaks of “Modern Psychology” as if it
were one unified and neutral science. In fact:
•
Psychology contains competing schools with different
(sometimes contradictory) views of human nature, freedom, sin and sexuality.
•
Some of these views treat guilt, self-denial or
obedience as pathologies, which is incompatible with the Gospel.
•
A formator trained without a robust Christian
anthropology may import these assumptions uncritically and end up “healing”
what the Church would call sanctification.
The safeguard is a formator whose primary formation is spiritual and
theological, who draws on the human sciences critically and with humility, and
who knows where their competence ends. Credentialing a formator mainly by his
psychology training turns the safeguard upside down.
5. The Analogies Fail
The article argues that the Church trains canon lawyers, doctors and
pilots before letting them practise, so formators need psychological training.
The analogies are weaker than they look.
•
Lawyers, doctors and pilots exercise technical
skills. A formator’s primary work is spiritual paternity, the accompaniment
of a soul toward God. The proper comparison is not with a technician but with a
father, a shepherd, a spiritual master.
•
The Church’s saints were formators too. St. John
Vianney, St. Francis de Sales and St. Ignatius (who wrote the Spiritual
Exercises before modern psychology existed) all formed souls with extraordinary
wisdom. They did so through prayer, discernment of spirits, and long personal
holiness.
•
The formator forms by who he is. RFIS speaks of
formators as those who “accompany” and bear witness through their own lives
(cf. RFIS, nn. 129–139, on the formation of formators). A seminarian learns the
priesthood chiefly by seeing it lived.
The article would ask whether a formator has the right credentials. The
Church asks first whether he is a man of prayer, faithful to his own
priesthood, and able to be a credible witness.
6. Formation Is a Work of Art, Not Only a
Method
Pope Francis, addressing seminarians and novices in 2013, warned against
two opposite errors: formation as rigid policing and formation as a purely
technical exercise. He said, in effect, that formation is “a work of art, not a
police action,” and that the aim is to form hearts (Francis, Address to
Seminarians, Novices and Those Discerning a Vocation, 6 July 2013). It is a
fine warning against harshness.
But notice the phrase “work of art.” An artist is not a technician
following a protocol. He works with something given, and he cooperates with a
design that is not his own. In priestly formation, that design is God’s. The
formator is a collaborator with the Holy Spirit, not the engineer of a finished
product.
The article’s “systemic” mentality (train the formator, fix the pipeline,
produce emotionally balanced priests) forgets this. Formation is not a factory,
and the Church says as much when she calls it “a continuous journey of
discipleship” (cf. RFIS, nn. 3, 57; PDV, n. 70).
7. What Seminarians Need “Much More” Of
Seminarians need competent, humane formators. But they need more than
competence, and the Church’s documents point to what this “more” includes.
•
Formators who are men of prayer. A formator who
does not pray cannot lead others into prayer, whatever his degrees.
•
Serious spiritual direction. The Church requires
it and treats the spiritual director as central to formation (cf. PDV, n. 40;
RFIS, nn. 44–48, 107–109).
•
A sacramental life. Formation is nourished by
the Eucharist, Reconciliation, the Liturgy of the Hours and Marian devotion,
which heal and shape the person in ways no technique reaches (cf. PDV, n. 48).
•
Discernment of spirits. The tradition of
Ignatius, Teresa and John of the Cross teaches how to read consolation,
desolation, temptation and the movements of grace. This is a spiritual skill
that psychology does not replace.
•
A contemplative gaze. Formators should look at a
seminarian’s struggles with faith as well as with insight. What looks like a
psychological knot may be a stage of the dark night, and what looks like a
spiritual failing may need clinical help. Only a formator who is both spiritually
and humanly formed can tell the difference.
•
Fatherhood. PDV describes the priest’s ministry
as spiritual fatherhood. A seminarian needs a father before he needs an
evaluator.
8. A Balanced Proposal
Rather than the article’s “essential part,” a more faithful formulation
would be the following.
•
Integration, not substitution. The four
dimensions of formation (human, spiritual, intellectual, pastoral) grow
together (RFIS, nn. 27–34).
•
Selection of formators by holiness first. PDV
insists that formators be chosen with great care, as men of sound doctrine,
pastoral experience and spiritual depth (cf. PDV, n. 66).
•
Psychology as consultant. Qualified, morally
sound and Christian-anthropology-aware professionals should be available for
referral, as the 2008 Guidelines provide, but the formation team retains the
responsibility to discern.
•
Basic human formation for all formators. Every
formator should have a working grasp of human development, listening skills and
the dynamics of accompaniment. This is reasonable, but it is a complement to
spiritual competence and not the criterion.
•
Continuing formation of formators. This should
include retreats, spiritual direction and theological renewal alongside
human-science training.
Conclusion
The article warns rightly against formators who mistake trauma for
rebellion or punish what they do not understand. But it offers a diagnosis and
a cure that are both too small. The diagnosis is that formators lack
psychological training, and the cure is more of it. The Church’s own teaching
says the deeper need is for formators who are men of God, who see the
seminarian as a mystery to be reverenced and a son to be fathered, and who use
the human sciences as instruments in the service of grace.
Man is, as Gaudium et Spes teaches, a mystery illumined only in
Christ. A formation that forgets this may produce priests who are
well-adjusted, emotionally literate and professionally competent, and still
leave them without the interior life that alone sustains a priest for forty
years. The Church needs priests who are human and holy, and formators who can
say to a seminarian, with St. Paul, that “it is no longer I who live, but
Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20).
Note: Quotations are from standard
English translations.
Here is the text of the original article: NOT EVERY PRIEST SHOULD BE ALLOWED NEAR A SEMINARY FORMATION TEAM.
In this century, it has become dangerously outdated to assume that every priest automatically qualifies to become a seminary formator simply because he wears a cassock, has a loud voice at conferences, or can quote Latin documents from memory. Human beings are not machines assembled with spiritual slogans.
A seminarian is a complex human person carrying emotions, fears, family wounds, psychological struggles, temperamental differences, social pressures, intellectual anxieties, hormonal realities, and personal history. Forming such a person requires more than pious vocabulary and disciplinary aggression disguised as “formation.”
It is becoming increasingly necessary that priests appointed as seminary formators undergo rigorous training in Modern Psychology, Human Development, Guidance and Counselling, Emotional Intelligence, and Pastoral Accompaniment before being entrusted with the delicate task of forming future priests.
Not every silence is humility. Not every extrovert is unserious. Not every reserved seminarian is proud. Not every struggling student is lazy. And not every emotionally wounded young man needs more punishment delivered with holy water.
Unfortunately, many formators were trained in environments where every human difficulty was interpreted either as “lack of vocation,” “spiritual weakness,” or “disobedience,” while basic psychological realities were ignored completely. Then years later, we become surprised when some priests carry unresolved emotional instability into ministry.
The truth is that one cannot adequately guide what one does not adequately understand.
The Church trains canon lawyers before allowing them judge cases. She trains doctors before allowing them touch the sick. Pilots are not sent into the air merely because they love aviation. It would therefore be intellectually inconsistent to consider psychological and human-scientific formation unnecessary in the very area where the Church is shaping future priests who will spend their lives dealing with human souls, emotions, crises, families, grief, loneliness, conflict, and moral struggles.
A formator must know theology, yes! but he must also understand the human person standing before him. Otherwise, he may mistake trauma for rebellion, exhaustion for indiscipline, introversion for arrogance, or emotional distress for lack of prayer.
The future of the priesthood will depend not only on how spiritually sound our formators are, but also on how psychologically educated, emotionally mature, intellectually balanced, and humanly perceptive they become.
