ARTICLES

How Goes St. Francis?

THE SEMINARY AFTER SIX YEARS OF BISHOP BROM

By William Parker and Judith Martel

In 1989 Rome named Bishop Robert Brom of Duluth, Minnesota as coadjutor and successor to the ailing Bishop Leo Maher. Brom was preceded by a reputation for orthodoxy and firm discipline of his priests. Brom has told priests and staff members that he was sent to San Diego to deal with St. Francis Seminary (suffering from declining enrollment and further notorious after publication of the 1992 book about homosexual priest scandals, Lead Us Not Into Temptation). Before being named a bishop, Brom had been rector of Immaculate Heart Seminary in Winona, Minnesota, from 1970 through 1979. In a May 15 phone interview, two staff members at that seminary -- both students during Brom's tenure as rector -- characterized Brom as providing discipline during the troubled early '70s (he expelled students who had enrolled to avoid the draft).

Upon taking over the San Diego Diocese, Brom replaced seminary staff, appointing Saint Columba pastor Monsignor John Dickie as rector in the summer of 1990. One source described Dickie as "a safe choice," because he would not offend local priests, either dissenters or orthodox (Brom had taken a poll of diocesan priests; Dickie was recommended by the greatest number).

According to former seminarians, Dickie was an effective rector, who chose a staff with diverse levels of experience. Added to Dickie's 34 years of experience was Father Mike Murphy with seven years in the priesthood, the newly-ordained Father Mike Sinor, and Sister Carlotta DiLorenzo, an academic advisor well-liked by the seminarians who joined the staff in the last two years of Dickie's term. Staff duties included spiritual direction of seminarians, celebrating daily Mass, presenting the weekly Rector's Conferences and conducting evaluations.

Coursework and general outline of seminary training are set by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops in the document "Program of Priestly Formation," which is based on the Vatican letter Pastores Dabo Vobis (I Will Give You Shepherds). Individual seminaries add extracurricular activities to provide spiritual formation and pastoral training. Monsignor Dickie's program was structured. The day began with morning prayer at 7:00 a.m. Students were then free for most of the day to attend classes at USD or Mesa College, to study, to meet with spiritual directors, or to engage in apostolic activities outside the seminary. Mass was at 5:15 every evening, followed by communal dinner, evening prayer, and seminary activities such as music practice and Rector's Conferences. Workshops were presented almost every Saturday. Seminarians visited parishes on Sundays. Throughout the year, there were a number of retreats and days of recollection.

Seminarians say they were surprised, when Father Steve Callahan replaced Monsignor Dickie as rector last year, that the entire staff was replaced. As far as pastoral experience, Callahan had been ordained for seven years, five of which he had worked as the bishop's secretary. The two staffers, Father Jaime Escobedo and Father Cavana Wallace, had been ordained two and three years, respectively.

One positive change was openness to traditional devotion: whereas in previous years, everyone was required to hold hands at Mass during the Our Father, this year they were told not to hold hands, because it is not theologically correct. Previously the men would be "spoken to" if they took Communion on the tongue rather than in the hand, but this year, either way was considered acceptable. The seminarians note that there is still no kneeling during Masses at the seminary.

The new staff stressed orthodoxy, giving seminarians hope that the heterodox teachings of USD's Religious Studies department would be challenged by the seminary. A seminarian from years ago claimed, "Eighty percent of the theology at USD was anti-Church." A current seminarian noted, "The approach is colored by the type of theology espoused by [Charles] Curran, [Richard] McBrien, and [Hans] Küng. In the textbook for the Catholic Theology course, Essential Catholicism by Thomas Bokenkotter, the author briefly discusses magisterial teaching, then compares it unfavorably to [dissidents] McCormick, Curran, or McBrien." He said that the professor teaching the course, Dr. Jane Gorman, also uses supplemental materials from Richard McBrien.

Seminarians note that Dr. Gary Macy, currently head of the Religious Studies department, was a student of dissenting theologian Bernard Cooke and uses Cooke's approach, especially with regard to the Sacraments. This approach stresses their historical, anthropological, and ritual aspects, reducing sacraments to communal rituals, with little or no distinction made between the validity of these rituals and those of other religious traditions. Books used in Macy's Christian Sacramental Practice course include, in addition to his own book, The Banquet's Wisdom, Bernard Cooke's Sacraments and Sacramentality and Symbols and Sacraments by Michael Lawler (the latter book claims that there are now nine sacraments). Seminarians have also said that Macy sometimes ridicules the Church in his classes.

Seminary students fault Dr. Florence Gillman (scheduled to speak at UCSD in June at the national conference of CORPUS, an organization of dissident ex-priests) and Father Orlando Espin for teaching their personal theologies rather than Catholic theology. Father Espin uses Richard McBrien's recently censured Catholicism in his classes. Dr. Kathleen Dugan's Jesus course uses the A Theology of Jesus series of books by Dominican Donald Goergen. These books claim, among other things, that Jesus did not know he was the Messiah, and that the term "Abba," used by Jesus when addressing his father, could be translated as "mother."

At times seminarians will speak out in classes, defending Church teaching for the benefit of other students, but most of the time, they say, they suffer in silence, not wanting to risk getting in trouble at USD or giving the seminary the reputation of being "uncooperative." Seminarians say they know of other students who received poor grades for answering exam questions according to Church teaching.

Asked if the seminary takes measures to prevent such problems or to counter the heterodoxy with correct teachings at seminary conferences, seminarians state that St. Francis staff members warn them about certain professors. According to seminarians, St. Francis has never given workshops on currently popular erroneous theology or on apologetics. Several seminarians pointed out that, under Dickie's administration, Father Mike Murphy was a critic of Catholic Answers, which he viewed as unecumenical, thereby eliminating a potential source of apologetics training. Last month, when the U.S. bishops issued a statement censuring McBrien's book Catholicism, the seminarians were given copies of a Catholic News Service article about it.

During the fall '95 semester, the seminary attempted to address the problems in the Religious Studies department, recommending classes best suited to the NCCB guidelines. USD professors learned of this and took it as a "blacklist" against heterodox teachers. The situation was eventually resolved by Father Callahan, but seminarians believe that there is still residual negative feeling at USD.

Another source complained that Bishop Brom should "clean up USD and require that USD's theology department present authentic Catholic doctrine as being true, not simply one opinion among many." He added that, if the bishop cannot do this, he should remove his seminarians from USD. He opined that the bishop does not do this because he is "afraid" of upsetting USD officials and local priests, as well as laypeople who have donated money to the school, believing it to be operated by the Catholic Church. He stated that the bishop could give his seminarians a better grounding in theology and philosophy at other local schools -- SDSU, UCSD, or even Point Loma Nazarene College.

"That Bishop Brom would continue to have his seminarians formed at an institution which brings in one of the architects of dissenting moral theology [Joseph Fuchs, who spoke at USD in November] and would bring in someone like Richard McBrien [hosted by USD in February] -- how many classes of seminarians have to go through USD with all these crazy extremist people before someone will be concerned enough to get them out of there?"

Likewise, he says, fear of offending other powerful bishops forces Brom to send most of his seminarians to St. John's Seminary in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, or St. Patrick's in the Archdiocese of San Francisco for graduate theology training, even though both schools have well-known problems with heterodox teaching.

Meanwhile, other changes were being made at the seminary by Father Callahan's regime. One change, at first welcomed by the seminarians, was a drastic reduction in structure. The daily schedule was left relatively intact, but there were fewer Rector's Conferences, most of them given by Father Callahan. The seminarians found some conferences "silly," including one by a member of the bishop's staff on table etiquette and another by Father Callahan on friendship, in which he told the seminarians to expect to have few nonpriest friends, as has been the case in his own life (he also claimed that he had no non-Catholic friends, because he had nothing to share with them).

With the lack of structure, discipline problems soon became apparent. Some seminarians began to skip morning prayer regularly, and absences were noted at Mass, dinner, and evening prayer. There was less access to the staff because Fathers Escobedo and Wallace also had to serve as diocesan vocations directors, requiring that they be absent frequently. Whereas the previous staff were almost always present for Mass, dinner and evening prayer, that became the exception rather than the rule this year.

The lack of discipline led to worsening morale problems. In addition, the seminarians were concerned about Callahan's "autocratic" and "odd" behavior. Among Callahan's unexplained actions: chopping down trees and digging up bushes, scraping paint off doors, digging up and disposing of the large Stations of the Cross behind Kolbe Center (donated by a diocesan group several years ago and used by seminarians for private devotions) and getting rid of the chapel's Worship hymnals (leaving them with only the contemporary songbooks). A shrine to Saint Francis of Assisi which the seminarians built last year was torn down one day for no apparent reason. The library was purged of valuable old books. Despite pleas from several seminarians who wanted to purchase the books, they disappeared. (Some were later discovered in the dumpsters.) Gifts donated by previous years' senior classes, including the albs students wear at Mass, have been thrown away. One seminarian suggested the attitude behind the purges is, "This is a new regime and we're going to get rid of everything that reminds us of the old regime."

In late March, the seminarians, happy with some aspects of the seminary but desiring more structure, discipline, spiritual formation, and better communication, held a meeting among themselves. They determined they should make their wishes known to the administration to help the staff define a clearer role for themselves in the formation program. However, the seminarians were so shocked and angered by the results of their evaluations, held right after Easter, that they cancelled their plans to meet with the administration, feeling the staff would not be receptive. "We felt the bishop and rector don't care and aren't going to listen anyway," said one young man. "There's so much anger and frustration as a result of the evaluations, we're wondering if we should continue here or go somewhere else."

Another seminarian stressed the positive role of Fathers Wallace and Escobedo, stating, "The priests are in touch with what's going on in the seminary community, but the rector doesn't have a clue."

In previous years, evaluations were conducted with all staff members present, so each seminarian heard the staff's assessment of him firsthand. Starting this year, the meeting was confined to the student and the rector, unless the student invited his spiritual director, although, as with the previous system, the spiritual director was not allowed to speak. Formerly, students going on for graduate theology work would be asked to choose from a list of approved theologates, which they would discuss with the bishop. This year the students were told by the rector where they would be sent for theology, eliminating another contact with the bishop.

Until this year evaluations were held in the fall and spring, so if a problem were noted in the fall, the student would be able to work on it throughout the year. This is particularly important in the case of those who might be not be allowed to continue seminary training. The "Program of Priestly Formation" states, "If seminarians do not have the qualities that will allow them to work as priests in a harmonious and effective way, it is only just to individual seminarians and to the Church to communicate this to them as early as possible and in a constructive manner" (paragraph 538). And, "In cases where a negative evaluation seems to indicate termination of seminary studies...a fair hearing should be given to students' assessments of themselves and to those who can speak on their behalf" (paragraph 539). This year, at least one student was dismissed because of a problem of which he was unaware. According to seminarians, the rector refused to contact people who might have provided testimony contradicting the stated reasons for the student's dismissal.

To this year's seminary class, the assessments were "not based on reality." Several seminarians believe that the bizarre evaluations represented Callahan's attempts at amateur psychology. One seminarian stated, "There was a lot of projection going on -- Callahan either went through that stuff or is going through it." The net result of the unhappy evaluation experience is a loss of credibility of the rector in the eyes of the seminarians.

Asked what measures they would suggest to improve the seminary program, the seminarians first focused on the problem with USD. The seminary staff should provide "substantial magisterial teaching" at the conferences, perhaps adding a second conference each week to address theological issues. It was suggested that parish and diocesan groups should take a more active interest in the seminarians. One student proposed frequent visits to schools and parishes by seminarians, who could give talks or teach religion classes. But most importantly, the seminarians said that credibility and trust have to be rebuilt, and that there needs to be more openness and honesty on the part of the staff.

The problem, says one source, is that the bishop and his assistants want so badly to make a "nice, institutional priest, someone who will follow the party line of the diocese, who won't step too far out of line theologically, but they also don't want an outspoken, knowledgeable priest either. Bishop Brom's worst enemy is not a dissenting priest; it is a knowledgeable, articulate, young, orthodox priest."