People tend to be less attracted to the religious life today because they no longer see in it the serenity, depth and solitude that marked it formerly, a clerical group was told at Cathedral Center.

Father Adrian Van Kaam, part of the Institute of Man workshop of Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, added that there are many problems in religious life that stem from the organizations and activities that have been invading the life.

Completing the March 15-16 workshop team were Father Bert Van Crooneburg and Susan Muto, who is doing doctoral work at the university.

Father Van Kaam emphasized the basic nature both of religious life and of marriage as permanent life-forms whose aim must be the “personal, cultural, and spiritual unfolding of each member.”

The philosophical or theological knowledge of God should not be confused with living religion, said Father Croonenburg. Religion is not the performance of social and charitable activities; neither is it adherence to customs, laws and discipline.

Both priests insisted on the need for cultural development and for an esthetic sense in religious. “No religion is possible without the admission of a higher beauty,” they said.

Miss Muto showed the spirituality of writers like Dante, Milton and Thoreau. “Many writers today are spiritual writers,” she said, “but in a negative sense since their writing shows God’s absence rather than presence in their works.” Cited were books like Camus’ “Stranger” and Kazantzakis’ “Zorba The Greek.”

There is a loss of a sense of wonder in today’s mechanistic world where we “love to burst balloons and to pierce mysteries,” she said.

A statewide group of more than 100 priests and sisters attended the workshop for the talks by team members, discussions and celebration of the Eucharist. The Grey Nuns of the Sacred Heart brought the program here.