ByzCath:
Yes this is one of the stated reasons but it is not a convincing one to me. If this was true then we should not allow older men to move, change jobs, marry, have children, etc…
Well, I’d disagree here. I suspect that experience has proven them right. Remember that in becoming a religious, you are entering into a brotherhood or sisterhood of communal life which is signifigantly different than any of these other environs. An older person who is set in their ways may both have difficulty adjusting to the obedience to superiors and environment there while the community itself might be challendge by these stresses. The policy is probably wise, then.
This will depend on the diocese.
True. I find that in many dioceses, ordinations tend to skew over 30 and sometimes over 40 these days, though.
Sorry but I think I will find much agreement out there. Those who graduate from college do not really have “life experience” as the college environment is different, very acedemic and liberal, and really bares no resemblance to real life.
You’re making too much of my statement. My point was merely that someone who is 21 or so and graduating from college is certainly at a different point in life than a 12 year old altar boy. No?
No, there are minor seminaries, Franscian University at Steubenville has one, there is one in Chicago used by the diocese and many religious orders.
Those are “college seminaries”. There are quite a few (and growing number), actually. The term “minor seminary” tends to get applied to them nowadays since the real minor seminaries (traditionally high school level) are almost all gone. Chicago does happen to have one of the largest remaining “minor seminaries”, Quigley. I went to school there. We also have a college level seminary (St. Joseph’s - previously Niles), connected with Loyola University. The college level seminary was created here in the 60’s, breaking off the “philosophers” from their old place of study at the major seminary in Mundelein. Nonetheless, college seminaries these days usually also represent a break in the natural progression of “lifers” in making of priests, whereby most men used to attend Catholic grade school, minor seminary, philosophy, theology. Now they enter either during or post college.
Anyways, there is no such thing as “recruitment” for vocations. Either one is called or one is not. When someone finds a person that they think may have a calling it is up to them to let that person know.
There is where I will disagree with you. Coming from a “lifer” background, especially.
Yes, either one is called or one is not. But one needs both exposure and discernment time to figure that out. It’s not magic. As such, it’s important to put out feelers and provide men with the opportunity to explore the possibility. That is what many programs as well as seminary, itself, is all about. Plenty of people who enter seminary don’t get ordained, afterall. All the more so at the lower levels, it is a place not just of training to be a priest, but discovery about oneself. But how would they have even come to consider these possibilities were they not recruited or invited in some way?
