Protocol for someone discerning a vocation to be a Diocesan Priest

[ExDeoVita]

What is the protocol for someone discerning a vocation to be a Diocesan Priest who has lived in several areas and received spiritual formation in more than one Diocese?

Is it assumed they should enter the seminary in the Diocese where they currently live or should they return to where they received spiritual formation in the past?

Should one weigh the geographic locations where they previously lived and which location they felt they could best live their Vocation, or should they just defer to the current location and enter the minor seminary there?

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

What is the protocol for someone discerning a vocation to be a Diocesan Priest who has lived in several areas and received spiritual formation in more than one Diocese?

Is it assumed they should enter the seminary in the Diocese where they currently live or should they return to where they received spiritual formation in the past?

Should one weigh the geographic locations where they previously lived and which location they felt they could best live their Vocation, or should they just defer to the current location and enter the minor seminary there?

Short answer, Yes.

Longer answer. There is no set rule as to which diocese you apply to. Usually the vocations director would want you to have some connection to the diocese.

One of those connections is living within the diocese. Another is that you have family living within the diocese. There are many more.

The reason they look for some sort of connection is that they do not wish to appear to be poaching vocations from other dioceses.

 

[Scoobyshme]

Unfortunately, you want to be very careful which diocese you sign up with. It doesn’t matter in the least which diocese you live in.

Case in point. Fr. John Corapi discerned that he had a vocation to the priesthood. He went through the vocation director at his home diocese. The man talked for a couple of hours about this and that while Fr. Corapi said nothing. The man’s big point was that the bishop of that diocese would never ordain a man who didn’t support women’s ordination, same sex marriage, etc. Fr. Corapi didn’t say anything, but he never went back there. He went to a different diocese and applied. He was accepted and was walking through the halls one day and the secretary was looking at his folder and laughing. He asked what was so funny and the secretary said it was a wonder they let him in with a reference like that in his file. So, he asked the Monseigner in charge of seminarians about it and he was told that when the committee met to determine who would be sent to seminary that year, his folder came up and one of the priests said, “Ut oh! Got a problem here.” And he read the letter aloud. It was from the guy in his home diocese saying the most horrible things about him, that a man like him should never be allowed to become a priest, etc. There was a brief silence afterward, then the rector asked the guy who read the letter, “Who did you say that was from?” And the guy said it was from such and such diocese, Fr. So and so. The rector looked at him, slammed his gavel, and said, “Accepted! Our kind of man!” LOL

Bottom line is you need to make sure you go to a diocese that is very faithful to the Church’s teachings. Otherwise, you’ll never make it.