For decades, Catholic seminaries — buffeted by the post-Vatican II turmoil of the 1960s and the sex-abuse crisis — have seen the ranks of candidates for the priesthood steadily shrink.
So far, that trend hasn’t changed, but it no longer reflects the reality within seminaries, which are at the healthiest point they have been in for decades in terms of culture and quality of priestly formation, experts say.
“I am convinced that U.S. Catholic seminaries are doing very well, better than they have in many decades. While there are statistics on seminary formation, my own conclusion comes down to personal experience and conversations with many other seminary rectors and formators over the 14 years that I have been doing this work. I would even call this a ‘golden age’ of seminary formation,” said Father Carter Griffin, rector of Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington, D.C.
“Some seminaries remain to be reformed, but … by a considerable majority, U.S. seminaries are in the best shape they’ve been for decades, and possibly ever,” agreed George Weigel, a prominent Catholic author and distinguished fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Weigel, a frequent speaker at American seminaries, says he has noticed “a level of seminarian maturity and faculty engagement in formation that would have been startling 40 years ago — perhaps even 25 years ago.”
For the 2023-2024 academic year, enrollment at post-college programs for priestly formation stood at 2,920 seminarians, an actual increase of 6%, yet overall “a continuation of relatively slow long-term decline” over the last 40 years, when the comparable figure was double that, at 6,426, according to an annual report on U.S. seminaries issued by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University.
Those numbers are not wrong, but they do not mean what they once did.
“‘Metrics’ can be a snare and a delusion, because you can’t measure spiritual and intellectual maturity and pastoral commitment mathematically,” Weigel cautioned.
In fact, if anything, smaller numbers can sometimes be a sign of health, he said.
“I will suggest one ‘metric’ that I find encouraging: the number of young men who are invited out of seminaries because in the judgment of wise and experienced formators they just don’t have the right stuff to function well in the ordained ministry. The days are almost completely gone when admission to a seminary was a virtual guarantee of eventual ordination,” Weigel said.
Many date the turnaround to the mid-2000s.
“Twenty years ago, seminaries were just turning a corner,” said Carmina Chapp, dean of the School of Theological Studies at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary outside Philadelphia.
“I think from there on, seminaries began to improve with the quality of their education, their intellectual formation, their attentiveness to human formation,” she said.
“When it came to seminary reform, the abuse crisis of 2002 concentrated the minds of bishops wonderfully in the matter,” Weigel said. “The abuse crisis made it unmistakably clear that the spike in abuse cases followed from the breakdown of theological and formational discipline in the seminaries of the mid- and late-1960s.”
Following the abuse crisis, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops put more of an emphasis on the “human formation” of priests and the discipline of celibacy, in the Program of Priestly Formation (PPF) — which sets the guidelines for how all U.S. seminarians are prepared for the priesthood.
For example, the first edition, issued in 1971, had just four paragraphs on the topic of celibacy, according to a report in America magazine. The second edition, in 1976, added one paragraph, and the 1981 edition resulted in the addition of several more, according to a presentation by Franciscan Sister Katarina Schuth at the University of St. Thomas’ St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, published on the USCCB website.
The next edition, in 1992, significantly expanded its treatment of celibacy. The same year, Pope John Paul II issued Pastores Dabo Vobis, a post-synodal apostolic exhortation on the formation of the priests — the first papal document in a generation. (The last one was Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Sacerdotalis Coelibatus, on priestly celibacy, in 1967).
Father Griffin described Pastores Dabo Vobis as the “‘magna carta’ of seminary formation.”
“It focused on the four areas of priestly formation, including — very importantly — human formation. Believe it or not, while human formation was done in seminaries prior to that, it didn’t have an explicit focus,” Father Griffin said. “We are now in the second or third generation of priests formed under PDV, and that has made a huge difference. The deep generational divides that afflicted seminaries in the past just aren’t there anymore.”
The fifth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation, released in 2005, reflects the influence of Pastores Dabo Vobis, with celibacy addressed nearly 20 times throughout the main document.
The multiple “upgrades” to the PPF have improved the “human formation” of seminarians, according to Chapp. “I also think that they’ve been attentive to the culture and the presuppositions men are coming to seminary with that need to be addressed — either affirmed or not,” she said. “Many men arrive at seminary having experienced a woundedness in the broader culture that has to be healed so they can be empowered to heal others as priests,” she added.
“We have the warnings of history close on our heels,” Father Griffin said.
“The clergy sex-abuse crisis happened, in my reading, because many men entered the seminary and were ordained who should never have been ordained. While far from perfect, the standards of admission are higher today, the instruments used (such as extensive psychological testing) are more comprehensive, and the people making decisions about admission and advancement are more aware of the dangers of ordaining the wrong men.”
It’s not just human formation and an increased emphasis on priestly celibacy.
Seminaries have also changed in how they form future priests theologically, shifting from a curriculum steeped in the works of Karl Rahner to one influenced by the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Pope Benedict XVI, according to Chapp.
While Rahner is considered more anthropocentrist in his theology, the latter approach is grounded in the ressourcement movement — theological renewal through a “return to the sources,” particularly Scripture and the Church Fathers.
Theological richness seems to come hand in hand with moral rigor and spiritual robustness.
“The kind of men who are stepping up to discern the priesthood in our increasingly secular age are not interested in a watered-down Christianity. I don’t know of a single seminarian who wants a warmed-over Gospel message that craves approval from the wider culture,” Father Griffin said.
He added, “I’ve walked closely with 250 seminarians over these 14 years, and almost to a man, they want a strong, confident, clear proclamation of the full Gospel message, both the parts that are pleasant and those that are more difficult. They are faithful to the Church, earnest, and open to formation. This has been not only my experience, but the experience of virtually every formator I know.”
Now, with the election of an American Pope, seminaries could be getting an added boost.
“It’s too soon to tell since most of the discernment and seminary applications this year were already well underway by the time that Pope Leo was elected. However, I am sure that an American Pope can only have a positive influence on seminary applications. I would be surprised if he hasn’t put the priesthood back on the map for many young American men,” Father Griffin said.
Weigel agreed. “I imagine that, over time, it will make a considerable difference that the present Pope has already made clear his appreciation for priests and seminarians, which was not a prominent characteristic of his immediate predecessor,” he said.
While it may be too early to tell about Pope Leo XIV’s effect on future vocations to the priesthood, Chapp says current seminarians at Saint Charles Borromeo are “very excited.”
She said, “They’re very optimistic and hopeful because the Pope’s American.”
