Vocation directors reject Bishop Curtiss' attack

National Catholic Reporter, Oct 20, 1995 by Pamela Schaeffer

Rigidity, not orthodoxy, is cause for rejecting candidates for priesthood or religious life, according to vocation directors who challenge the negative assessment of their role by Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss of Omaha, Neb.

Curtiss charged in a recent article for his diocesan newspaper, The Catholic Voice, reprinted in Our Sunday Visitor on Oct. 8, that vocation directors and teams may bear responsibility for the shortage of priests and nuns because they routinely turn away candidates with conservative views.

Not so, say directors, who privately report feeling puzzled, pained and undermined by the report.

Far more important than numbers, vocation directors say, is attracting men and women who not only love the church and its traditions, but who demonstrate psychological and emotional health and are open to whatever the future may bring.

Fr. Robert Flagg, vocation director for the Boston archdiocese and newly elected vice president of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors, said his antennae go up when candidates have "preconceived thoughts about the church" or seem to be "pining for the church of the '40s or '50s."

Flagg, who admits to being "a bit puzzled" by Curtiss' remarks, looks for candidates to be "open to the church's teachings," but also to show ability to "move with the church."

Flagg said, "When I sense a man is rigidly locked into positions, whether on the right or left, I ask will he be open to formation."

Fr. John Klein, vocation director for the Chicago archdiocese, agrees, comparing the priesthood today to a wild carnival ride.

"I use the analogy of a roller coaster," he said. "I think the future of the church and of religious life is tremendously exciting but unpredictable. If you keep your hands inside the car, you can enjoy the ride. But if you try to hold on to something, you're going to get hurt."

A member of the executive committee for seminary development at the National Catholic Educational Association in Washington, Klein said, "The church is asking ordained and vowed people to make a lifetime commitment. Yet who's to say what the priesthood is going to be like in 10, 20 or 30 years?"

Like others interviewed, Fr. Jim Walsh, executive director of NCEA's seminary department and editor of the association's Seminary Journal, said he could only cite his own experience in response to Curtiss' views.

"All I can do is talk about what I know," he said. "I do know that vocation directors are being very careful as to the people they recommend for seminary, because they realize that with fewer priests the demands are greater and the leadership qualities more important than they were 30 years ago.

"Yes, there is more care being taken in terms of who is admitted ... but I know of no seminary that turns people away because they want to be with the church," he said.

Seminary admission policies are "more comprehensive" in part because of greater recognition of priests' problems - alcoholism, sex abuse and the like. Today's priests need "more maturity, the ability to work with people, to coordinate a ministering community," he said.

Sr. Catherine Bertrand of Chicago, School Sister of Notre Dame and executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference, sees broad changes in church and society reflected in declining numbers, rather than flaws in the work of vocation directors and boards.

Within the bad news" of vocational decline is also the "good news" of a more involved laity, of women in occupations previously closed to them, she said. She also cites fewer children born to parents who want grandchildren; negative images of clergy in the wake of sex scandals; and a self-perpetuating downward spiral: fewer priests and nuns, thus fewer role models for young people making vocational choices.

To suggest that a director's response to those considering priesthood or religious life hinges on orthodoxy would be "an overstatement," Bertrand said.

"It's certainly not in my realm to refute what Archbishop Curtiss might know from his own experience," she said, "but in general, one of the concerns we continue to have is that we do very, very careful screening. Our service to the church is not just in inviting, but also in saying no."

Fidelity to the church "has as much to do with the spirit of the law as it does with the letter of the law," Bertrand said, and with "living our lives as people who are rooted in the gospel. That doesn't mean that we take the church lightly ... but when it comes to touching he hearts and minds of people, there's lot more gray area than there is black and white."

Echoing sentiments of colleagues, Dominican Sr. Diane Poplawski, vocation director for the Racine Dominican Sisters in Wisconsin and a member of he National Religious Vocation Conference board, expressed discomfort over focus on numbers.

"If we lose sight of the quality and get only caught up in the quantity, we are doing a disservice," she said.

Privately, vocation directors express concern that dioceses reporting big increases in vocations are accepting men with a rigidly conservative view of church - in some cases candidates rejected by their home dioceses,