Seminaries accused of rejecting student priests who don’t fit mould

The man who presided over a surge in vocations for the Dominican order here has warned that many potential candidates for the priesthood are being cast aside because they don’t fit a particular mould. 

Fr Gerard Dunne OP, who was the Director of Vocations for the Irish Dominicans from 2000-2014, told The Irish Catholic that “the desire to have a seminarian that fits the prevailing attitude or government in the seminary or house of formation at a given time rules out many fine potential candidates for priesthood”. 

He said that this, coupled with the “scant attention” the Church pays to vocations, was a “recipe for disaster”. 

“It’s incredibly discouraging. The downside of it is that there are many more vocations out there that just don’t get the opportunity to proceed which is a pity. We are losing potentially fine priests for the future,” he said.

“Vocations personnel really should be accepting people on their merits rather than on who they think will fit into a seminary system. They need to be brave,” he added.

Discernment

Writing in this newspaper this week, Fr Dunne insisted that a “healthy attitude towards the acceptance of men with different qualities is needed by those charged with vocational discernment at all levels”. 

“Each potential vocation is unique and there is no ‘one size fits all’ candidate. This healthy attitude would encourage many more to take the call of the Lord more seriously,” Fr Dunne said. 

“If seminaries and houses of formation are in the business of seeking out the ‘ideal’ candidate, then there will be very few vocations into the future. What the Church wants are holy priests, men of prayer with a deep relationship with God. If seminaries are looking for anything other than that, then the calibre of future priests in Ireland and beyond will be lacking,” he said.