By Terry W. Young

It is probably easier these days to say what a seminary isn’t than what it is. At first glance it is very obvious that most Catholic seminaries are no longer tightly regimented institutions following a rigid, uniform program of traditional studies. The modern seminary is very much a school in transition preparing men for a Church in transition.

Typical of such an institution in transition is St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Md., the oldest and largest seminary in the United States, where many of the priest of our archdiocese studied. At present the Archdiocese of Atlanta has five men preparing for the priesthood there. Chris Mussell, Ron Bono, and Rick Allen attend the Liberal Arts College of St. Mary’s , which is located in the Catonsville section of Baltimore, where they are pursuing a regular four-year liberal arts course of studies. Academically, they have much in common with their counterparts in a regular college, for at St. Mary’s a student can choose to concentrate in one of several areas of study such as philosophy, the humanities, the natural sciences, psychology, social studies, or languages.

Yet there is something different about a seminary college. There is a real concerted effort in a seminary college to promote an atmosphere in which a man can grow into Christian manhood, and there is probably greater involvement in the needs of the community by college seminarians than by other collegians. This growth in Christian manhood is seen to come through prayer and spiritual development, which hinges very largely on the seminarian’s relationship to his spiritual director, through study, and through a participation in the ministry of the Church throughout the seminary experience.

St. Mary’s location in Baltimore provides a number of opportunities for sampling different types of ministries such as religious education, community action, parochial organization, institutional chaplaincies and liturgical renewal. This three-fold program of academic, pastoral, and spiritual activity is intended to both feed and challenged the seminarian’s growth in faith and commitment to Christ. That growth in faith and commitment is the purpose of the seminary.

After four years of college the seminarian begins theological studies. Most of the men who come to St. Mary’s School of Theology, located in the Roland Park section of Baltimore, have been to a seminary college, but an ever increasing number of men enter each year with other types of college backgrounds. At present Atlanta has two men, Pat Bishop and Terry Young, studying at the School of Theology.

The first three years at the School of Theology are spent in theological study and research and the same type of supervised pastoral work which was available at the college level. Just as in other colleges and universities the curriculum in the seminary is a developing thing, and in recent years the students have been taking an active role in determining the course of studies. The real emphasis in the theology years is on becoming a minister specifically in the tradition of the Catholic Church. The Christian man must now become a “Churchman.”

Toward the end of this third year of theology the seminarian is officially commissioned to work as an ordained minister of the Church when he is ordained to the diaconte. As a deacon he has the authority to preach, baptize, officiate at marriages, carry Holy Communion to the sick and bury the dead in the name of the Church.

The fourth year of a man’s theological studies is spent very largely in exercising his diaconate under the supervision of parish priests in his own diocese. Therefore, Deacon Terry Young worked through the summer and autumn at St. Thomas More, Decatur, and will soon be working at Holy Cross, Atlanta. Deacons Paul Berny and Peter Dora, both from St. Meinrad’s Seminary in Indiana, are presently working at St. Thomas More, Decatur, and St. Joseph’s, Athens, respectively.

The modern seminary is very much a place in transition preparing men for a Church in transition. Yet its goal is the same as that of its predecessor—to help men to grow in their faith and commitment to Christ so that they may be good leaders for the Church of their time.