"Why MOST young men should enter a seminary..."

[DameAgnes]

Interesting idea but I'm not sure it is practical. Any thoughts? http://aleteia.org/2016/11/10/why-most-young-men-should-enter-seminary/

[Gabriela]

This guy had a good time at seminary, so he thinks everyone should go. I think it's a terrible idea. He's basically applying the same reasoning that our country now applies to all education: pass the buck. Don't bother educating people in moral leadership in elementary school. Put it off to middle school. But wait, no, they can put it off till high school. Why do it in high school when they'll get it in college? They shouldn't do it in college: Everyone should go to seminary!

 

Is it only men who need to exercise moral leadership? How are these men supposed to pay for this education with zero this-worldly ROI? Is it financially responsible for men to postpone working and saving if they know they're called to have a family? Is it spiritually responsible to veer from a non-seminary-bound vocational path if you're certain that's what God is calling you to? Might going to seminary make a family- or otherwise-called man feel insecure, inferior, or pressured to become a priest, thus abandoning his true vocation out of confusion?

"Meh. None of that matters, because he'll get great religious education and formation there!" Yeah. He should be getting that education all his life, from every educational institution he attends. If he's not, we need to fix those, not hold him in the educational system even longer, at his own expense.

Honestly, I don't think this article is responsible. I think this guy got a provocative idea, said, "That'd make a great, thought-provoking article," and never really considered the implications of his idea. Which is authorially irresponsible.

[Sponsa-Christi]

I think it would make sense to say most men should discern the possibility of a call to priesthood, assuming that "discerning priesthood" means giving the idea some serious thought, praying about it, and maybe doing a "come and see." But I also agree that it's a bad idea to propose that most men enter the seminary.

Besides all the practical concerns Gabriela mentioned, I would worry that this would water down seminary formation. If a man enters the seminary, he really needs to focus on formation for the priesthood specifically. I don't think it would be helpful for anyone if priestly formation was turned into just general Christian formation, because those called to the priesthood do need to be formed in a sense of priestly identity. 

Also, I would also worry that remaining in the seminary might become the "default" option for men who didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives. The Church needs men who become priests because they have a strong sense of being called and who made a deliberate choice to answer that call---not men who become priests because no better option came along.

[NadaTeTurbe]

A lot of men that I know did not go to college after high school. At 14 or 16 years old, they learned a manual work. Not everyone is an intellectual. It really get on my nerves when writers think that everyone have the abilities to do higher studies.