High school/preparatory seminaries

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Does anyone have reliable information about orthodox high school or preparatory seminaries? My family attends St. Margaret Mary Church in Oakland, CA, which celebrates both the ordinary form in Latin and the extraordinary form of the Latin Rite. (We attend the former.) Our eldest son (age 12) has expressed a desire to become a priest since he was quite young, and we would like to foster his vocation–without communicating to him the mistaken notion that he must become a priest. I am aware of approximately four high school seminaries in North America: Seminary of Christ the King in Mission, BC; St. Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary, WI; Holy Cross House of Formation in the Diocese of LaCrosse; and Cathedral Prep in Brooklyn. Are there others? We would also appreciate specific information about those listed above. What ought one to think about high school seminaries? We would appreciate your thoughts on these and related subjects.
 
Have you contacted the vocations director in either the Stockton Diocese or the Diocese for Oakland? I know that the Stockton Diocese has a really good part-time vocations director (priest). He is very knowledgeable and was willing to talk to my son when he had questions about a calling at the age of 10. He might be know of some information about high school seminaries and can get you some information. He doesn’t pressure my son and gave him some really good advice about what he could do about discerning at a young age. You just might want to set up a meeting and see what comes of it. I hope that this helps.
🙂
 
Thank you for the suggestion. I have not spoken to him since the 2008 Walk-for-Life West Coast. You might be interested to learn that he has not been vocations director in the diocese for several years.
 
Theris now a part time director of vocations for the Stockton Diocese. He is also a priest at St. Stanislaus in Modesto. You might try giving him a call at the parish office. E-mail me if you would like more info.
 
I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I teach at one of only two Catholic high schools in the Diocese of Stockton and know the former Vocations Director (Fr. Joseph Illo) reasonably well. He is a the current pastor at St. Joseph’s in Modesto and a good priest, but the Vocations Direct(ress) has been a religious sister, Sr. Wanda Billion, for the last several years.
 
First and foremost, I congratulate you on being so excited for your son. Having been a seminarian for a number of years, I heard many stories of young men who were shunned by family members when bringing up the idea of becoming a priest because it didn’t fit into the parents’ pre-conceived notions of what their children would become.

Also, praise God that your son may indeed be called. It is a moment of joy to enter onto such a path of discernment.

Now, regarding high school seminaries, I don’t know anything about specific ones. I do know however that they were phased out for the most part in the United States. The school I went to was at one time a high school seminary, but later converted to a college seminary. Having met some guys at seminary who came directly out of high school, I don’t think it’s necessarily the best move to put someone at so young of an age into a seminary. It certainly could be fine, but I found that the men who entered seminary after some time in college tend to be more well-rounded and have a better idea of what the world is like.

That’s not to say that it’s at all Bad to consider giving your life to God at the age of 12, but if you do so, you may wind up ordained at 26 and never have seen the real strife and pain that people you will minister to one day will experience. Of course it’s not necessary to experience a problem in order to know its solution, but life experience is a very valuable tool in ministry.

I guess what I’m saying is, it’s a good situation to be in, but from what I experienced in seminary, it’s better to wait until you are more mature to begin the formal process, because if you are called, God will not stop calling. Even in a normal high school, He will get the message through.

Congratulations and peace be with you,

Luke Arredondo
 
Well, Fr. Illo would be some one he could talk to. Fr. Dutra at St. Stanislaus has been a part time vocations director for almost a year…although he is really busy with the parish and all, so maybe he hasn’t gotten out as much as he would like to. However, from personal experience, he is more than willing to take time to talk to some one, even at 12, who is interested in the priesthood. I know that there is a religious sister who is involved with the vocations, but from what I understand from Fr. Dutra, he has been helping her out on a part time basis.
God Bless
 
I read the original question last night and had an immediate, strong reaction, so I decided to sleep on it before responding.

First, how wonderful that your son is considering becoming a priest.

After having read much on the subject, particularly in light of the clerical abuse scandals, it is my personal opinion that the disappearance, by and large, of high school seminaries as they existed during their heyday is a good thing. A single-sex boarding school situation, in which dating girls was usually anathema, was a perfect incubator for the stunted psychosexual development that occasionally resulted in abuse.

It is my understanding that the few remaining high school seminaries are run very differently today, with the young men expected to have appropriate, chaste interactions with girls their own age, particularly while at home. I think that very careful vetting of any educational institution must take place, particularly when a child so young is being taken out of the home environment during formative years.

Personally, I cannot imagine having a child far from home during the high school years; I feel very strongly that adolescents need parental interaction on a consistent basis, and I can’t imagine ceding day to day responsibility to anyone else. To be honest, we just enjoyed our girls so much that having one of them far away, years before college, would have been awful! However, you might find a place that seems a good fit, to all of you, and with which you are comfortable; it is a hard decision, I know, and I don’t envy you.

God bless you as you wrestle with this.
 
dixieagle said:
I read the original question last night and had an immediate, strong reaction, so I decided to sleep on it before responding.

First, how wonderful that your son is considering becoming a priest.

After having read much on the subject, particularly in light of the clerical abuse scandals, it is my personal opinion that the disappearance, by and large, of high school seminaries as they existed during their heyday is a good thing. A single-sex boarding school situation, in which dating girls was usually anathema, was a perfect incubator for the stunted psychosexual development that occasionally resulted in abuse.

It is my understanding that the few remaining high school seminaries are run very differently today, with the young men expected to have appropriate, chaste interactions with girls their own age, particularly while at home. I think that very careful vetting of any educational institution must take place, particularly when a child so young is being taken out of the home environment during formative years.

Personally, I cannot imagine having a child far from home during the high school years; I feel very strongly that adolescents need parental interaction on a consistent basis, and I can’t imagine ceding day to day responsibility to anyone else. To be honest, we just enjoyed our girls so much that having one of them far away, years before college, would have been awful! However, you might find a place that seems a good fit, to all of you, and with which you are comfortable; it is a hard decision, I know, and I don’t envy you.

God bless you as you wrestle with this.
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Thank you so much for posting this. This was EXACTLY my first reaction when I read the OP.
I CANNOT imagine being so far away from my boys during these times. I cannot imagine there would be many feelings of closeness between parents and children if the children were sent away for so many months of the year. These teen years have been the BEST, and I cannot imagine missing that experience with them.

As someone else said, if your son is being called, God will not stop calling.

We have a fairly newly ordained priest, and he talks openly about the fact he had a girlfriend through much of college, and he says even though he loved her, he KNEW he was meant to be a priest. She is now married to someone else, and they are all friends. Our retired priest also gave homilies referencing the girl he dated before he was ordained. So I think it is healthy for boys considering the seminary to date, to discern, to have relationships with women (chaste, of course).
 
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