Hi everyone and welcome again to another one of my podbean podcast YouTube videos on gaam mitp 22.com blog uh and so on uh I’ve been doing a lot of interviews this past week uh some of them you know with uh academics and focused on liturgy I did Bishop Bishop James connley of
Lincoln uh yesterday with Adam Bartlett so I’ve been kind of all over the map but I’m going to be starting a series now on seminaries and to that end I’m going to be interviewing uh Seminary rectors and today I’m very very excited we have father Keith chilinski uh who is
The director of St Charles seminary in St Charles Bor Maro seminary in Philadelphia Pennsylvania a seminary near and dear to our hearts because we’ve known so many young men that have gone through there who are now priests and my wife Carrie uh was once the director of the master’s degree program
For I don’t know what the official name of it is uh father the the Master’s for the night degree program whatever it is master of arts and yeah so she did that for seven or eight years so we’re very excited to have you on anyway father chinsky isn’t just father chinsky
Anymore he is also Bishop elect chilinski so we’ll refer to him as his high Excellency uh most excellent uh he’s but he’s soon to be an auxiliary Bishop in Philadelphia he was appointed auxiliary Bishop uh last year by Pope fr and will be officially installed I March
7th I do believeth yes less than and my wife will be there at your installation and to give you some in indication of how highly she thinks of you I’m giving a lecture at uh Catholic University on that same day she was going to be attending that lecture with me but no
She’s going to be attending the installation of a oh my Heavens I am so of a certain father chilinski but she loves the minary and she loves you and very happy to have you here to discuss Seminary education today I also want to add in terms of your biography I was
Sort of I was doing some uh reconing of your of your record today and I noticed that you you actually have a degree in in Psychology or Psychotherapy or something along those lines and you’re actually uh involved in the Catholic Psychotherapy Association were was a chaplain there correct that you you you
Got your degree at that Institute right what’s it called the psychologic The Institute for the psychological Sciences IPS it was known I IPS that that’s what I was groping for IPs yes and you’re native of of New York’s connecti I do believe um did you went to public school
Right I was a public I went to Catholic school for kindergarten and first grade until we moved to Connecticut where Catholic schools were not as prevalent where we Liv so public well I noticed it because I too went to public schools and and yet somehow ended up in the Seminary
And next week I’m going to be interviewing M senior Andy Baker uh who is the director of Mount St Mary seminary in Emmitsburg Maryland my Elma moer anyway okay all the preliminaries out of the way thank you for coming on the show today you’re welcome thank you
Thanks for having okay so let’s just start with a very generic question here uh I I ended the seminary in 1986 so let let I’m getting older and older as the days go on so you know that’s like 40 years ago almost now and so I’m assuming I often like to
Speak as if oh I know so much about seminaries because I was in one uh and yet uh my knowledge of seminaries is probably dated now at this point so and I know a lot of my listeners and viewers are not that familiar with what goes on
In in modern day seminaries uh and and they’re very concerned with the issue of Priestly formation uh and so what what would you let’s just begin with a very generic question question what is the state of Seminary education we’ll limit this to the United States what is the state of
Seminary education in the United States right now give give us a general assessment if you would sure uh I would start by saying having in personally been involved in the work now about for 10 years of Seminary formation that I am filled very sincerely with a lot of Hope
Um there’s been a real transformation a real change in culture I would say especially over these last 10 years 10 to 15 years um as you know in the church a lot of times thing thing things take a long time to sort of trickle down and to to renew because you
Basic and especially this is the case with Seminary formation because you form people as you were formed just like you parent people as you were parented so if you were raised in kind of this old model which was prevalent I think pretty much throughout the United States this
Very militaristic you know very Duty based approach to you obey or you’re just kicked out you know it was all about following the rules and and just getting by and very much like a military boot camp kind of thing that was the mentality at a lot of places um
Including St Charles and um what I see now both through the documents that have come out of Rome and now implemented through the USC CB it’s all about relationship you know it’s all about like the goal of Seminary formation is to lead you into relationship with the Trinity ultimately
And it’s explicit about that and it talks about the different dimensions of the person that all need to be fostered and looked at you know individually uh but but then in the end synthesized and and brought into harmony with their relationship with a living loving God
And it’s so it’s it’s a very very different mentality you know that talk it’s it’s just really a real shift yeah that that that that’s very interesting uh one of the things I mean when I did attend Seminary at Mount St Mary’s I I went to a minor seminary in Northern
Kentucky that doesn’t exist anymore St Pius I 10th it was called it was the Seminary run by the dasis of cumington Kentucky was very conservative and it was it was a closed campus and it was very like you say that military sort of thing then I got to Mount St Mary’s and
It was an entirely different environment because one of the things that makes the mount unique and I’ll talk about this with M Senor Baker the director there next week is that it sits on a colid college campus okay and uh that that gave it a kind of more open atmosphere
Which really contrasted with that more military atmosphere of my undergraduate years yeah and I have to admit I I preferred the atmosphere at Mount St Mary’s that’s it’s not to say that that more military thing didn’t have its have its place as well um okay well that that’s good so you’re incouraged you’re
Encouraged by by this change that you see going on now do you see that as is it is there uniformity in seminary formation these days I know when I went to Seminary I mean there were seminaries oh that’s a very liberal Seminary or oh that’s a very you know St Charles was
That’s a conservative Place Mount St Mary’s that’s a conservative Place Dunwood that’s a very conservative place but St Mary’s in Baltimore oh that’s the liberal Place theological College oh that’s liberal um is that still true that there’s this real Patchwork quilt in in my experience I I really don’t see
That today I think uh I think there there was a Vatican visitation in the early 2000s throughout the country and that seemed to kind of level everything off and really put people both theologically but also just the formational mindset um on a much much more Level Playing Field I think than it
Was uh 20 30 40 years ago um yeah I think it’s across the board uh it’s I think every place that I’ve heard of for sure is pretty Orthodox and um yeah and is really growing in there I I think of an example of you know when I was in
Seminary St Min red seminary in Indiana had a reputation of sort of being left of center not really liberal but left of center now I just gave a lecture there last year and was just overwhelmed by the absolute profundity of of of its theologians and its faculty and and the
Orthodoxy of it and and just the intelligence of it I was shocked and I thought gosh there really are good things going on in seminaries across the board these days so and that’s you know that that’s really really good to hear um so I I have heard talk uh just
Few months ago of of perhaps we have all these seminaries in the United States what that there’s going to be some sort of consolidation of seminaries I’ve heard some talk that Bishops are talking about maybe we have too many maybe we need to go to just four or five
Seminaries six you know on a regional basis have you heard that and if that if so what do you think of that uh yes I’ve heard that that’s been a a bigger part of of the conversation recently it’s been public as well um I it’s kind of to me the the
Conversation sounds very similar to the debate that a lot of dases have about whether we should close parishes or not you know how should we consolidate it’s and it’s U and it’s understandable because it’s numbers driven and and financial and personnel and um but I I I
Always tend to be more on the optimistic uh Pie in the Sky kind of would that all of these seminaries be filled again you know obviously we need we need a real increase inv vocations you know certain places are are stronger than others uh with that but I I I I’m
More on the uh let’s see if how we can make this this work as much as possible possible yeah I’m not I’ll just say I’m not a fan this is my opinion I’m not a fan of this sort of let’s let’s centralize let’s consolidate I’m not a
Fan of that I think there’s Great Value in having a m go and it is the I’m sorry it is the vision of the church that that I think it’s written I forget where but that every dases would have its own Seminary no obviously that’s not yeah
Feasible for but that’s the vision so so there’s a real gift and advant anage of forming men in the place where where they uh reside or where they’re to be a priest so there’s something yeah or or or pairing up at least in an area too is that where other
Re other local dases would be sending their guys there as well so you know someone studying at St Charles would know almost every St Charles Seminary and then would have this community of brother priests once and that you know what that’s extremely important isn’t it right that you have have a community of
Brother priests and and and and so that’s something that to this day I still even though I never made it to priesthood I bailed out I I I’m a failure I didn’t make it okay and yet uh some of the dearest friends I still have
In this life are friends that I made at some like Bishop Conley of Lincoln Nebraska I interviewed him I’ve interviewed him twice now I mean he and he was just this little John lenen glasses bespeckled Little Hippie dude off the organic farm in seminary in his
N you know a fresh convert to the faith and now here he is all growed up and a bishop and and you too right and so there’s just and I can speak that way of him with affection because I went to the Seminary with him oh it’s it’s the it’s
It’s funny what we always have the surveys and exit interviews with the guys getting ready to be ordained you always ask what’s going to be what will you miss the most about leaving about not being at the Seminary always always always the fraternity the brothers just having that that real closeness and
Friendship it’s really good well that brings me to to the next question then um I I know I know priests and I won’t mention their names and some of them are very very Orthodox priests not wild-eyed you know um wackos out there on the far
Left or even on the fringes of the far right I know some priests say oh just get rid of seminaries entirely they’re they’re based on an old-fashioned monastic model uh of of education for priests and it doesn’t really prepare anybody really for the reality of Parish
Priest Hood um and you know that we should just have guys studying in houses of formation living in rectories and you know going to local colleges you know the drill you get the idea and I what what I often say to that and then I’m going get your comment is yeah that’s
True I don’t think seminaries are a bit of an artificial environment and are not the same as what it’s like to be in a parish and therefore they don’t prepare you for Parish priesthood but what could I’m often reminded of the fact that I I often had people tell me what it would
Be like to be a parent to be a daddy but I didn’t have the faintest idea what that really meant until I actually became a daddy and there’s not a class you could take in the world that would prepare you to be a daddy dadd but you
Know what did prepare me to be a daddy the spiritual formation I had in the Seminary right and so what what do you think though of that idea just get rid of the seminaries and go to houses of formation with guys going to local colleges and living in rectories and
That kind of a more a more I guess worker priest kind of a mentality yeah no it’s a great question I I would say the so for example we in in in part of our program we had this uh for many years we call it this spiritual year
Where even more intensely they lived in a very close-nit uh Community uh in a more intimate setting for a whole year and we we there were a lot of critiques of that saying you know our our priests are not being formed to be religious they’re like why why are you forcing
Them to live in community but if if you really look at I’m more and more I’m looking at the church at Seminary formation at the priesthood at everything through the the lens of family and the church is a family the seminary community is a family where you’re forming all these future fathers
Of the family to learn how to live as a family and then going out so it’s it’s not a an either or kind of a thing that that they work together I certainly do not believe in the closed model uh the old monastic closed model that we had
Here years ago um but because you need to take what you’ve received here the seeds yeah the seeds of faith of hope and love the spirituality that you experience the lurgical formation that you could not get just being out in the house somewhere um as as well as that
That sense of real uh the Brotherhood um that there there’s just something very special that does happen here I think it would be a real loss if if we just if we abandon that model all together uh I think so too um and I also think that there is a kind of
Theological education that a priest needs to get that can only happen in a seminary and I don’t care how good your theology Department might be at a local Catholic University it’s not going to be oriented directly towards what it is that a seminarian the kind of SE theology a seminarian needs to know
Agree th% yeah and philosophy too oh and philosophy as well yeah I mean I mean I well like I said I went to undergraduate Seminary and we study philosophy and it was you know Scholastic philosophy tomis philosophy uh and I’m not saying that’s the only kind of philosophy that should
Be studied but I think it is the philosophy that a seminarian should know right I absolutely do and yet if you go to a local University and well we want all of our seminarians to go to say Temple University and get a or St Joseph’s and get get a Philosophy degree
You you know you know they’re not going to be getting good oldfashioned you know meritan jelson peeper at St Thomas they’re not going to be getting that so yeah so there’s a there’s a big downside to to to that idea so yeah so I’m I’m a fan of
Of the idea that of of Seminary education so let’s I want to talk specifically now about your Seminary I know I mean I’ve know I’ve been it was St Charles since let’s see Pope John Paul visited Philadelphia right after being Pope what year was it
19799 yeah 79 and I remember that was my first exposure to St Charles I stayed there uh I was I was an undergraduate Seminary and I got a you know invitation to go to the Civic Center I think and and see him say Mass so I stayed at St
Charles and and so I I and I developed friendships there with with guys so I’ve been affiliate with St Charles so I have to say I’m I’m a little bit pained in my soul that you guys are selling the property that you a beautiful historic old property right in the mainline of
Philadelphia and you’re moving to a new building uh gwined Mercy uh College in gwed Mercy Pennsylvania um speak to that a little bit I mean obviously you’re downsizing right and what will be your capacity for for seminarians at the new facility the yeah we’re down sizing from
74 acres to 16 Acres uh obviously a much smaller footprint um the rooms will on the we have uh 20 available on our off-site campus where we do the propic year and then we’ll have aund about 140 uh rooms to start in the at the gwed campus so so that’s great to accommodate
160 which is which would be a great number for us to have we’re kind of in that 140 150 range right now that’s about what Mount St Mar’s was when I was there but I I know where you are right now what what’s the capacity if 400 500
Well during the baby boom you had it was I think close to 600 they had the Barrack style things oh my gosh you see these old pictur I mean that just seems like a fantasy now right a whole different era of the church you have 600 seminarians all in in one place
Uh but anyway yeah let’s hope that that you fill the new facility at gwi obviously for those listening you don’t know I mean this was done because for large I think largely for financial reasons so many of the old buildings there where you sit now are in you know
They’re in need of renovation and repair and so so much deferred maintenance and you know they did the best they could with a lot of things but it was just it just too much to upkeep yeah and things like old boy spoilers and windows and Roofing and
Wiring i i i one aspect of the move that I’m certainly grieving you know the loss of of of this campus but I am looking forward to not having roof leaks you know and and and having efficient windows and heating and all stuff on a practical definitely I’m a little bit
Jealous because they’ve renovated the dormatory that I stayed in at Mount St Mary’s Seminary because when I was there it was RA those he steam radiators in the room that made those banging noises all night long oh yeah and it there were only two temperatures that it had
Freezing and 9 million degrees so when those things were banging all night you’d open the window to your room in the dead so yeah so those are the kinds of upgrades that take money you know and and so on but anyway let’s let’s let’s move on to to okay so that’s kind of
Where where seminaries are now and uh where you guys are going to be moving to and so on a couple of I think um more perhaps a a few more controversial things number one what are seminarians like today I mean I’ve I’ve been reading a lot of things that say in general
American seminarians are trending more and more and more I don’t know what term you want to use traditionalist conservative uh these categories are a bit hack needed you know aren’t necessarily accurate but I think you get a sense of what I’m talking about number
One is that true and number two if it is true what sort of is that a good thing is that a bad thing or is it a mixed bag what kind of challenges does that then propose to the sem so for example you got a lot of seminarians who think that
I I want to say the traditional Latin mass and I think the novas Oro the bogus Oro you know and all that kind of stuff is is no good like so you get the sort of Dynamic I’m talking about here does what what’s going on with young seminarians these
Days and how are they confronting the turmoil that’s in the church today yeah that’s a good question I I would start with um you certainly can’t generalize because each guy’s unique and and each journey of vocation is unique but in terms of General Trends I would say this first um these
Guys are very very on the whole transparent and engaging formation like they’re they’re coming with a hunger uh that I see for healing for uh like genuine authentic conversion um and are very very open in talking to formators and and from what I understand spiritual directors and and
Counselors and I I was in that role before becoming recor I was in the counseling role I was just always so edified by how guys just genuinely openly transparently uh availed themselves to the formation process you know wow some some guys more than others of course and
But that’s part of the journey is you really want trying to develop a an atmosphere of trust and safety so they really can have the right be open in in the right you know for wow you know what I’m going to pause for a second right there because I said at the beginning
There might be differences between my own Seminary back and today that is so refreshing for me to hear because it’s the exact opposite of the experience I had our experience was you want to hide as much as you can from the for maters yeah hide and survive you know yeah hide
And that’s yeah you wanted to hide and survive because you didn’t trust the for maters yeah you thought that they all had it out for you yeah and and so you just wanted to fly under the radar till you got ordained yeah so that’s that’s good to hear that there’s this trans go
Ahead really I’m sorry very much so and so that’s getting back to that initial point I made about this all like the Seminary being about relationship very much this is coming out of the Rio from 2016 and seef like the idea of a formator today is really seeing him as a
Mentor truly as a mentor in in every way someone like using that the word that’s used a lot but it’s very very good in this context accompaniment you know like you really want to get to know a guy and and and the guy in his openness really
Wants to be known and and so it’s a really it’s a beautiful Journey that that happens when when these these guys Avail themselves like that well that’s good and it could be too because the the kind of young man entering into seminaries today might because of our culture because of the
Decline of our culture might be actually a more fractured and wounded human being psychologically than seminarians of old I’m thinking especially in terms of things like pornography uh I I once talked to a seminary formator I won’t mention his name and I asked him about this question
And he said Larry if we were to reject every single seminarian who comes in today because they had a porn habit you know in the recent past we would not have any candidates for the priesthood uh and obviously I don’t want you to speak about specific
You know are divulg in it but is is is this something the Seminary has had to address let’s let’s put it that way yeah for sure and I especially in my previous role as counselor and did a lot in human formation um there’s a with the there’s
A lot of resources that have sprung up thank God over the last 10 years and we’ve made use of a lot of those things just for even for education and that it’s it’s such a Scourge and it’s so prevalent in today’s world um that even if a guy’s not struggling with it
Personally pastorally he really needs to know how to confront this and how to help people who are coming to him but there’s there’s a lot of resources that we’ve engaged to to to help guys that’s an interesting go a go ahead no you go ahead and I think but in the in the
Bigger um picture of this uh I think certainly we have and I’ve seen a lot of other seminaries too are much more intentional and capable in really helping guys in their chassity formation like really understanding what it is really encouraging and and um you know um creating a culture that’s really like
Striving for that and there’s there’s so many different ways you can do that that is so key that it because you know we we if our we don’t live in a culture that promotes Chasity so counterculture it’s so so contrary to the culture today to promote Chastity and so many guys coming
Into the Seminary and I know that when I went to Seminary even though pornography was not at all an issue especially you know the internet stuff uh there were guys who came into the Seminary who were still the victims of the sexual Revolution who had had multiple promiscuous sexual relationships and so
On uh you know coming into the Seminary that had scarred them and you know had made them not quite as chased as they should be so that that’s that’s good to hear with regard to the transparency and the programs and you made a point that I think is very important that it’s
Important for seminaries to address this issue not because the men themselves need to be healed of this uh but they’re gonna have to deal with it I I know there’s a uh priest up in Allentown I think he’s a graduate of St Charles father Allen hofa uh do you know Allen
Father Alan yeah here my time yeah oh yeah great guy great priest I love that big guy he’s been up here to our farm but he’s doing a Ministry now uh for for you know people addicted to pornography yeah it’s it’s it’s essential today really is yeah wonderful and so I would
That would that more priests were trained and but they’re going to hear it in the confessional that’s for sure at some point so that’s it true well let’s move on to you know the idea though to to get back to the other point I’m making liturgically this this is an
Obsession of mine so pardon me I’m going to ride my own hobby horse here and drive this into the ground uh but I mean I’m going to be blunt are there a lot of seminarians that prefer the old Mass to the to the mass of Paul v 6 is that is
That a problem is that an issue I don’t uh my experience here I don’t see it as a problem I do see it as a phenomenon uh it it does seem that a greater majority again I don’t want to blanket it because a lot of guys are not interested in the
Extraordinary form but I would say a greater percent are compared to when I was in the Seminary or when you were in the Seminary so um it’s it’s definitely something that’s out there um but I think I think the key is to be able to with good with good theological training
And rooting oneself in Vatican 2 documents and and so forth you you it it helps to um not polar I the issue so much that it’s there a leite or something like that that that actually okay you know I might have a preference for um you know the extraordinary form
Which is fine and we don’t try to squelch that uh as long as they’re they see the the validity of the novas sordo and and the Pastoral sensitivity to to work with people who might not have the same proclivities as you do you know and
Not seeing that this is the only way um what I do see is underneath it though aside from a a preference for Extraordinary form more universally what I’m seeing is just guys who want a very who want reverence in liturgy period through just through Beauty through
Through good music and and and just the celebration of it in a good and that would be the vast majority of seminarians you would say for sure yeah absolutely once again another difference between when I was when I was in seminary in the 80s the Seminary was evenly divided right down the middle
Between let’s let’s have guitars and St Louis Jesuits yeah and all that versus let’s have mass in Latin with you know with with chant and so and and the The Divide was often quite bitter uh so fortunately I’m so I’m glad to hear that that divide has gone away and it points
To something you said earlier that I think is important one of the reasons why seminaries continue continue to have their their validity is that they prepare guys liturgically I mean if I had not had my experience in the Seminary of novas sordo liturgies of a very high order that were extremely
Well done and beautiful I may never have thought that it was possible you know for that for that to happen yeah understood yeah and also you know the morning and evening prayer together and all those kinds of things that that kind of lurgical formation I think is extremely important as well I
You know and and and was all novas sorta so I I I learned in seminary that it’s possible to have the mass of Paul the 6 and have it be beautiful and reverent but that brings me to another point which is why why I asked are are most
Seminarians like this now because it does seem to me that there is this to bit to be a bit controversial here there there does seem to be a current emphasis in the church by some in positions of high Authority that the church is just supposed to be this endlessly changing constantly changing
Entity chameleon like entity that shifts and moves with the times and so on uh because that’s what the people of today want and expect is this fluid malleable church that you know meets people where they are and yet it seems to me that the Pastoral reality on the ground is the
Opposite it seems to me that what young people and it wouldn’t just be seminarians but young people in general are looking for is the Eternal the Transcendent the stable that which does not change everything in their culture it changes their whole experience is of life as as heraclitus on steroids of of
You know endless endless change and now the church is this is supposed to be this that way too I I I I so it’s encouraging to me hear that seminarians are looking for that kind of reverence in in in the Liturgy and so forth I mean do you share my that pastoral assessment
Of mine that that’s what young people are looking for today uh I I I do and I I we I’ve just had a conversation recently about that in terms of whether it’s liturgy or or other things you know the young people today are looking for stability they’re looking for that rock
Really to to fix ones on and when they find it in the church they they they really run to it with with great Zeal and uh so I I think uh um you know it’s it’s it is it’s a scary vulnerable world out there you know and I think because
It’s hard for us to understand with the the whole social media phenomenon like what would it be like you’re you’re insecure enough as an adolescent you know when it gets magnified through social media it’s it could be very very unsettling you know in one’s life yeah
Obviously you want to be you want to have a pastoral soul and you want to be patient with people and accompany them and all th those things about discernment every priest knows what I’m talking about but all of that is on is on the on the surface of what must be a
Deeper commitment to something Eternal and true and unchanging absolutely and that kind of brings me to one of my final points here that I want to bring up and and obviously I’m going to plug my own discipline I I just can’t emphasize enough the importance of good Theology and that seminaries God bless
The seminaries of today that seem to be you know really doubling down on on good theology does father pachic still teach at St Charles Seminary by the way he does he’s the he’s the veteran Professor I believe at this point well tell him I said hi in the say he’s been in our
Living room actually in Allentown uh a few times back when Carrie still worked there I love that guy but I I I think of him because he’s brilliant and he teaches brilliant Theology and one of my frustrations and I want you to speak to this because I think it’s important one
Of my frustrations when I was in seminary was how many of my fellow seminarians seemed anti-intellectual uh anti theology that um I just need to get through these four years get my degree and then I’m never going to crack open another book uh I’m you know because what does this have to
Do with what I’m going to be doing as a priest and I think that’s I I’m very shortsighted is that is there still a kind of undercurrent of that in the Seminary today do you think I think yeah it’s in my time they call it C is for collar you
Know i’ never heard that before that’s a good one that’s a good one um I yeah I’m sure it’s there I I don’t hear that explicitly but I know that some priests espouse that um I do see a friendly uh tension uh among the priest formators because each sort of has their
Own emphasis that they’re working in you know the spiritual is most important the human is you know the the intellectual is yeah you know as Rector I’m trying to I’m trying to see the whole picture and seeing how all of them are to are interdependent and should be yes you
Know and so that’s very much how the way I simply frame it when I talk to the guys I say the more you love someone the more you want to know about them and then the more you know about them the more you love them and it so it should go hand in
Hand so study is not antithetical to information it should actually feed it and enhance it you know that’s that was my thought I mean I mean and the theology that I do I mean that I’m devoted to that I’ve spent my life promoting and studying is the Theology
Of of you know Ros mon Theology of people like gordini Bazar Ro singer buer de lubach and and the point is as you all know is that they sought to bring Theology and sanctity Theology and spirituality back together because they had kind of been divided the old Scholastic NEOS Scholastic manuals God
Bless them they had their place and they did bring Clarity and a certain uniformity of formation but they were dry and they were Aid and they didn’t they were deductive and syllogistic and didn’t really connect with the spiritual life and so my whole theological career has been been about theologians that
Seek to connect the spiritual back to the theological so I absolutely love what you just said about when you love someone you want to know more about them you know and the more you know about them the more you love them um Absolut and and also I think
That there’s been uh I know that my uh my friend Father John gtch a priest of the dicese of Brooklyn do you know father gri by any chance of course everybody knows the grip all right everybody knows gri as we call him but he has been involved in um and and
Others that I know in various uh institutes or formation groups trying to create uh better homilies better homiletics uh from priests and the reason why I bring that up in conjunction to to this conversation about theology is it seems to me that they go together you know that you you
Nemo do qu non Hobbit you can’t give what you don’t have and if you don’t have lexio deina a meditative prayer life on theological things then you’re not really going to have much to say in your homies uh and so I think those two things go together so what kind of an
Emphasis is there at the C and connecting sort of homiletics and Theology and like you were just talking about that whole integrated sort of approach to things yeah it’s uh and actually our our friend Father Tom Daly is just spearheading this this Catholic preaching Institute he’s starting here um but it’s it it’s
It’s it’s it’s totally interconnected and I I I’ll start by saying this when I talk to the guys in my class I say do you know what you’re communicating when you’re preaching it it and it goes Way Beyond content he said you know the thing that’s touching people usually first is
Your faith you’re communicating when you preach you’re communicating whether you believe this stuff yeah yeah or is this just going to be an AC academic Treatise you know and although there’s place for for catechetical preaching but but even with catechetical preaching it’s coming you
It’s from a place of I’m on fire and I want you to know this you know it’s you’re you’re you’re communicating your whole person including your own relationship with the Triune God as as you’re trying to bridge them and bring them into the mystery right that’s like
The div Vision the ultimate goal doing that it it’s necessary and I’m very encouraged like the documents today very explicit about lexio it’s very explicit about from the very beginning of of formation and really penetrating the scriptures and really meditating with them yeah that’s a that’s a big piece
I’m very encouraged too we we have an excellent scripture department and um from what I heard Kelly Anderson good friend of oh yeah Senor Mike McGee father Frank jaffra this we just have a great father Brady um they what’s wonderful about that that department in particular is they they always are
Teaching the scripture through not just through an academic lens but also through the Pastoral lens and particularly ordered toward preaching so it all goes together and so we have a pretty we have a really good um Harmony I think between these different components that that really help form
The guys I so so so important yeah I know Kelly Anderson I knew all those other guys you mentioned too but I just been talking to Kelly so she she and she’s good friends with kri so and also how could I not have brought up Father
Tom Daly my old Tom you know those listening don’t know what I’m talking about but father Daly is an oblate of St Francis to sales and he from he went to to sales University where I taught as a student then he was faculty there but he
Hired me it was father daily that hired me at the sales University uh and so he’s responsible for the disaster that I am now whatever Havoc I have wre on the world is Father DA’s fault but please give father daily my my fondest regards but anyway so the H the thing about
Homiletics really gets under my skin uh because you know I’m a teacher I was a teacher and obviously there were days where I wasn’t really all that prepared because of this and the other thing but if your preparation is remote is is if if your if your remote preparation is
Sufficient and enormous then you’re going to be able at times from now and then to to in a sense wing it to just go up and let the spirit move you and speak but if there’s no water in that well because you really didn’t study what are
You go if you’re going to wing it because you’re busy and you and sometimes legitimately so like I got called to the hospital last night because a longtime parishioner’s mother is dying and I was up all night and I I I was planning on writing my homy last
Night I didn’t get a chance to you know and but that’s why you need to study Theology and pray and do Lex so that you can and and then have the ability to speak extemporaneously to stand up and like you said to share with your parish
Is your faith to say I’m not really prepared in my homy today because here’s why you know and here’s what I was doing last night and then speak on that hom Alize on that I don’t know I’m really on a rant now but uh no I agree I’ll share with you when
I it’s it’s it’s again it’s that living loving relationship with a trying God who’s going to lead us through the day-to-day grind through the ups and downs through busyness or times of slowness but if you’re if you’re plugged in you know if you’re really engaged if you’re connected if you’re in love with
God it’s just it’s going to fuel everything whether you have great orator skills or not it’s that faith that gets communic at and I’ve experienced in in Ministry I’ve had some of those weeks where legitimately I’ve just I was just nonstop and I was like
You know I and it was funny I sometimes in those instances I’ve given homilies and people said that was one of your best homes bubble yeah like the Lord and in a sense the Lord’s writing your homy as your as you’re working sometimes and it’s yeah
Like some of my best lectures were the ones I was least prepared for just went in and said okay here’s the deal and boom and it turned out to be great so but but that’s because the preparation is there the soil a lot of hard work so
To speak before yeah and and yeah that that we’re we’re kind of uh running a little bit out of time but uh if you can stay a few more minutes I there is a crisis in the church today uh I mean at least in terms of the raw statistics right the
Metrics all the Pew research search is that the number of non-religious people the so-called nuns is now up to 29% uh the percentage of Catholics who go to mass on a Sunday continues to go down marriages and baptisms continue to go down parishes are closing and
Consolidating and so on uh and I don’t want to be uh all doom and gloom here that’s not the point the point is how are you preparing the seminarians of tomorrow I mean not the sem the priests of Tomorrow the seminarians of today how are you preparing them in a sense for
The challenges that that are ahead in terms of U an increasingly unbelieving world and an in an increasing sense of the church hemorrhaging people despite our best efforts is is is that something that you address in your formation with with seminarians you know how to how to deal
With this kind of difficult demographic let’s put it that way yeah it’s and I would start by saying it it does go back to the the basic you know uh fundamentals like in any sport what’s going to convert the most it’s it’s a it’s a heart on fire in love with God
Yes and one whose mind is U conformed to truth and and one who who appreciates and leads people to Beauty you know the the when you just that that it’s the fundament Al uh thing so it can’t that has to be at the heart if that’s not there programs come
And go strategies come and go right it’s it’s all about your own living loving encounter but in the more particular it’s interesting our Archbishop this is a high priority in his vision um in Philadelphia about evangelizing particularly the youth um but really having an outward-facing church so we don’t just stay self-referential and
Look at and we’re we’re reading this book um by m senior Shay from Christendom to Apostolic oh gosh what a great book from chrisan and there’s a follow-up book now too there’s a second book oh is there hang on I’ve got it right here it’s called I just got it I haven’t
Read it the religion of the day squel to from Christendom to Apostolic Mission uh the religion of the day SQL to from oh very good so University of Mary uh and what I would recommend to people I’m glad you brought this up these are small books easily read and the first one is
Called from Christendom to Apostolic Mission uh like I said I haven’t read this one yet but the first one is just magnificent and I would highly recommend people get them and read them but anyway I interrupted you so go ahead oh that’s all right then we’re actually and we’re
Having a workshop our sort of formation Workshop of of the spring semester is going to be based on this idea um and what is what does the evangelizing church look like today and how do we need any kind of pastoral the Archbishop says like a pastoral conversion a
Mindset instead of just sort of maintaining and just yeah maintenance Catholicism maintenance and staying focused on you know my Orthodoxy but not like not ever going out sharing about what I know and who who the Lord is and so having that sort of generosity of spirit and an outward facing um view
Yeah to not be defensive to be more yes proactive well I I joke around a lot you know that you know all these dases around the country they all that over the past 20 25 years many of them have held cids or you know diois and CID and
They all have fancy names like coming alive in the spirit CED 2015 you know of the dicese of XYZ and really all they are is let’s get together and discuss which parishes we’re going to close and all of that is designed to Simply give the bishop cover when he
Closes the parishes he was going to close anyway so that’s the cotal church at work as far as I’m concerned uh but that’s I joke about it because to me those sorts of gestures though though perhaps probably necessary and you’re going to find this out as a bishop very
Soon uh uh rear guard actions they they actions in of you know Burning Bridges behind us as we Retreat so you know and and but we need a more proactive Church you know a church that’s out there outward I like what you said outward facing outward facing yeah and I I would
Say to the guys love by its nature is expansive Love by its nature is is always expanding it’s always going this direction and so yes it’s not a time to retreat you know there’s plenty in the world to discourage us and certainly plenty that we’ve seen in the church to
Discourage us but it doesn’t change the fact that love still exists and it’s God and the more we plugged in the more we the more we can be vulnerable and receive the love I I would say you know formation is really learning how to let God love you and that’s that’s not the
Hide the stuff that’s the that’s the transparency and let him in and once you’ve really let him love you for who you are not for who you’re performing to be it’s like you’re golden it’s like that just becomes that Wellspring that just wants to go out that just it’s like
An instinct you know that is that’s beautiful somebody should make you a bishop I think that’s that’s really good because it I mean it’s good because I agree with it completely and it agrees with me so that means it’s but no that’s Love Is Love is expansive I love that that is
Everything that I’ve been on about out for my entire theological career love is expansive and what it points to is yeah what we’re going through as a church right now it’s painful it’s it’s no fun watching institutions die uh Catholic Hospitals close down Catholic schools close down Catholic parishes close down
Catholic universities go under you know that’s no fun and you yourself are experiencing the pain of that right now where you’re in this historic property that just can’t be sustained anymore so you’ve got to make the painful decision ision to you know go to something smaller and more sustainable and yet at
The same time it represents a unique opportunity for St Charles boromeo Seminary to remake itself you know to be to be remade in his love and In His Image and it’s you know the buildings come and go and in the end again it is hard to leave this place but in the end
This this I have just so much um gratitude and hope in seeing the guys that are here this just so much goodness love sincerity and that same goodness love and sincerity is going to be at gwened next year and yeah that’s that’s what it’s about that is what it’s about
And extrapolating from that to the church at large just the church is in a crisis but I’m not dystopian about this yeah we’re g you know rotzinger saw it in 1967 the church is going to get smaller and it’s going to shrink and but it’s going to be a smaller and Holier
Church and the the basic Apostolic con stitution hierarchical Constitution sacramental constitution of the church will remain and at the same time it the church has given a great opportunity to re to redash form itself uh for a new world and that’s kind of exciting to be
On the we live in exciting times it’s kind of exciting to be on the you know I’m old I’ll be dead soon as a priest friend of mine says you know him father Mike Kerper he’s a mounty like me he’s a priest in NASA New Hampshire he’s been saying
Since he was night you know we’ll be dead soon well I said to him the other day cuz he’s about 71 or two I said you know Mike uh we really will be dead soon so so let’s stop joking about it not it’s not so fun but that’s the point
The transitoriness of our existence yeah is something that we do have to write we have to write Christ into the transitoriness of our existence and U that’s what Ary formation these days has got to be about right absolutely absolutely yeah well you know what I I
Think that’s perhaps a good way to end I don’t want to presume too much of your time I man it’s this is the first time you and I have actually met my wife’s met you before uh but it’s been an absolute Delight a joy I hope our paths
Cross again I do too very much and I’ll be praying for you on March 7th when your installation is is auxiliary Bishop in Philadelphia you’ll probably be the next Cardinal of Chicago someday and then right on up into the papacy so you’re on your way now sir yeah you just
Get ready that’s busy enough because it well um do you have any last words before we sign off father no I just thank you I just want to say to you this this how love is expansive the very fact you’re doing this podcast is the sign of that that love is
Expans well thank you very much because uh I do a lot of these things and people think oh you know it’s how hard can it be to sit and just have a conversation with somebody but it’s actually exhausting you do have to prepare uh on
A wide VAR of topics and why do I do it I do it because I love the church and um and I really do it’s just my Ministry it’s what I do so actually I thank you for that I’m not going to engage in
False humility it is why I do what I do you know and and um so thank you but anyway thank you for coming on the show today thank you to everybody uh for listening and as I said everybody out there please pray for father chinsky who will soon be auxiliary Bishop of
Philadelphia on March 7th pray for him because he’s going to need it you got it all right thanks again thanks
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