The Brotherhood Of All the Vows Taken by Priests, Pledging a Life of Celibacy Is the Perhaps the Most Challenging for Seminarians and the Church, by Todd Jones, Columbus Dispatch, August 23, 2009

The Brotherhood
Of All the Vows Taken by Priests, Pledging a Life of Celibacy Is the Perhaps the Most Challenging for Seminarians and the Church

By Todd Jones
Columbus Dispatch
August 23, 2009

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/multimedia/priest/day2.html

The football player wore tape on his ankles and fingers, a protective mouthpiece - and a tight, white clerical collar.

Deacon Robert Bolding, seven months from being ordained a Roman Catholic priest, was suited in black for the game and caught up in competitive spirit.

"Everybody on this field knows he was down! Come on!" he yelled at a referee.

Offensive lineman and Pontifical Josephinum seminarian Robert Bolding, right, prepares for battle during a flag-football game.

Robert, a hulking lineman at 6-foot-7 and 325 pounds, took the annual Mud Bowl seriously on this crisp, sunny day in November at the Pontifical College Josephinum.

The flag football game between the Roman Catholic school's undergraduate College of Liberal Arts and the graduate School of Theology gives the 164 students a release from the grind of seminary life.

Grills smoked, beer chilled, and rock songs blasted from huge speakers on the seminary grounds just north of I-270 on the North Side. The Josephinum looked like what it is: a college campus.

"We're pretty normal guys in a lot of respects," said John Eckert, a third-year theologian from North Carolina. "Some people think we're so different because we've chosen this life."

But they are very different in regard to the sacrifices they'll make if they're ordained.

Celibacy, required of priests by the Catholic Church since the 12th century, is an undeniable issue thinning the ranks of potential clergy.

"When people find out you're going to be a priest, they always say to you, 'Oh, celibacy; you're not going to have sex,' " said Robert, who vowed celibacy and obedience to the Church when he was ordained a deacon in April 2008.

The Vatican-owned Josephinum has zero tolerance for unchaste behavior, which is the national standard for seminaries set by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

At the Josephinum, where dating is prohibited, support takes a different form.

"We'll never have wives to go home to share our lives with," said Robert, a Phoenix native. "What we do have is this brotherhood."

That's something not fully understood outside the seminary.

• • •

Three theology students contributed to a festive mood during the Mud Bowl by offering wry commentary via loudspeakers atop a 15-foot scaffolding.

During breaks in the action, they spoofed the real-American-heroes beer commercials, including one about a seminarian having a secret crush on Sarah Palin.

"She's like Tina Fey without the liberal stuff. She likes guns, oil, babies, and Jesus. It's a good thing she's not Catholic , or your vocation would be in crisis."

The seminarians roared at the irony. They confront the serious issue of celibacy upon beginning the six- to 10-year collegiate path toward priesthood.

"When you first come to the seminary, it's the God vs. Girl question," said Robert, 27. "Celibacy is all that's on our minds all the time then. But as I've grown in my vocation, I don't think about it as much. I'm not pining away over it."

Celibacy ranks as the main reason for the dwindling numbers of priests, according to a 2007 study by Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

The U.S. has 17,966 fewer priests now than in 1965 to serve a larger and growing number of Catholics. And the majority of the nation's 65 million Catholics say in surveys that they favor the idea of married priests.

Still, the Church remains steadfast against the ordination of women because Jesus' apostles - upon whom he conferred the priesthood - were men, and it refuses to allow priests to marry, partly because celibacy is considered an "inestimable gift."

"I can honestly say if the Church said tomorrow it's OK for priests to get married, I wouldn't," said Robert, who dated during a year-and-a-half period when he left the seminary before returning in 2005.

"Celibacy is something you're called to, and in your free will you say yes to.

"You're making a positive decision to give your life to God in a more complete and more perfect way. You're not exclusively bound to another person."

Celibacy, of course, is more challenging in practicality.

"The seminary has an academic approach to celibacy," said the Rev. Jeff Coning, vocations director for the Diocese of Columbus. "But it's kind of like training soldiers to go to Iraq; when you go over there and do it, it's a different ballgame."

The Church teaches that celibacy is appropriate because it's an imitation of Christ, but that concept isn't easily understood by many.

"It's a real challenge," said the Rev. Patrick Manning, who served as Josephinum vice-rector during Robert's training. "The challenge has to be embraced, and that doesn't come automatically."

• • •

With the undergraduates leading 19-6 at halftime, a seminarian entertained visiting family and friends by juggling as he rode a unicycle around the field.

"This is actually what he did to get into the Pontifical College Josephinum," third-year theology student Andrew Budzinski joked over the PA system.

The good-natured gag mocked the truth about the seminary's two-step application process.

"It was a little daunting," Robert said.

His seminary application to the Diocese of Phoenix totaled 40 pages. He wrote essays and provided five independent referrals. He underwent a day of psychological examinations, an IQ test and a personality test. He was fingerprinted and underwent a criminal background check. He was interviewed by the diocesan review board and bishop.

After six months, diocese officials voted favorably to nominate him for the seminary.

"Then I had to get accepted by the seminary," Robert said.

That's not a guarantee. Josephinum admissions director Dr. Perry Cahall said that in recent years the seminary's two schools have had 60 to 75 applicants each summer, and as many as 12 have been rejected annually for various reasons.

"Quality is more important than quantity. Rome has been very clear on that," Cahall said.

Pope Benedict XVI emphasized that last year when he made the first papal visit to the U.S. since the nation's clergy sex-abuse scandal erupted in 2002.

"We will absolutely exclude pedophiles from the sacred ministry," the Pope said then. "It is more important to have good priests than many priests. We will do everything possible to heal this wound."

The Josephinum has its own admissions process. Besides meeting academic requirements, candidates must have clean psychological tests.

"Psychosexual immaturity is the general category we're concerned about," Cahall said.

That concern has always been part of the admissions process, he said, but it has been emphasized more since the scandal broke seven years ago.

Despite rigorous screening, the Josephinum's enrollment has grown by 32 in the past six years. The 164 students in 2008-09 was two shy of the previous year, which was the highest total since the mid-1980s.

"When young men who were considering entering the seminary saw these (priests) perpetrating horrible crimes, they saw it as their time to come to the aid of the Church," Cahall said.

They do so despite feeling like suspects at times because of the scandal.

"It's created an atmosphere of mistrust," said Deacon Adam Stimpson, a fourth-year theologian from Illinois. "Sometimes, I've walked into a public place with my collar on and I've overheard people say, 'Look at him, he must like kids.' It makes me angry. Sometimes it breaks my heart."

One of Robert's relatives once told him that he hopes he doesn't molest children.

"We have to deal with the sins of those who came before us," Robert said. "But greater than the frustration is our love of God and the desire to bring about healing."

• • •

A spirit of fraternity swirled at midfield after the undergraduates' 32-13 victory. Players on both teams recited the Lord's Prayer together, followed by the cheer, "One, two, three, Jesus!"

They left the field as one, men drawn together by Christ and facing the same challenges of discernment.

"I've never had deeper friendships or more meaningful friendships than I do at the seminary," Robert said. "We really want what is best for each other."

The friendships exist in an environment that causes some outsiders to suspect the seminary is a homosexual haven.

"We'll go to a store together and know we're getting looks from people who are assuming we're together in that sense," Eckert said.

Michael Rose, a Josephinum seminarian in the early 1990s, conducted a two-year investigation into the reasons for the 35-year decline in ordinations to the priesthood and caused a stir with his 2002 book, "Goodbye, Good Men."

Rose wrote in part about allegations of rampant homosexuality, illicit sexual activity and pedophilia among students and faculty at U.S. seminaries.

Stimpson read Rose's book before entering the seminary.

"I thought the school might be full of guys against me because I'm a heterosexual guy who likes sports," he said. "I came in, and what happened is, I found it was not like that at all."

The Catholic Church teaches that being gay is not sinful in and of itself, but it condemns gay sex. The Josephinum policy bars gay seminarians.

"There is less homosexuality in the seminary than anywhere," Robert said. "If you're a homosexual in the seminary, you have to hide that fact. We don't openly ordain homosexuals. That's why it's so weird to get accused."

In response to the sex-abuse scandal, Vatican representatives visited the Josephinum in 2005 as part of their evaluations of all U.S. Catholic seminaries.

"Everybody here did one-on-one interviews," Manning said. "When we got the report back, it was very clear that there was no evidence at all of a gay subculture."

But a culture of brotherhood permeates the Josephinum, evident as winners and losers from the Mud Bowl trudged off to the campus tavern, J.J.'s Pub.

Losers, however, paid for the party.