Does Psychology Belong In the Community of the Church?

I don’t like to repeat myself, but in a recent Café blog I quoted from Homiletic and Pastoral Review [May 24, 2024] Fr. Etienne Huard, O.S.B., who was defending the idea of extending seminary life to nine years and explaining why more and better formation is necessary. As he put it,
 
There are three critical areas of concern: psychological, spiritual, and intellectual health and ability. Psychologically, men [today’s seminary applicants] present with higher rates of anxiety and depression, personal and family trauma, isolation, and lower rates of people skills. Spiritually, men entering the seminary have less familiarity with Catholic tradition, piety, prayer, and common practices. Additionally, men often have a lower sense of worth and being a beloved son of the Father, possessing an obscured sense of masculine virtue and value. Intellectually, men tend to have a diminished ability and desire for critical thinking and expression, especially in writing and the basics of intellectual work. This issue has only been compounded since the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, there is a lower ability for hard, focused, and sustained work.
 
It is my understanding that American bishops are looking at these issues as they consider seminary admissions and components of seminary life. St. Meinrad’s Seminary in Indiana has already added the ninth year, which it describes as an introduction to the clerical way of life, a year of discernment. The term used to describe this new first year at St. Meinrad is “propaedeutic,” which Meriam Webster defines as “preparatory study or instruction.” The preparation is for seminary-clerical life. I have a link to St. Meinrad’s propaedeutic philosophy here. Muted in the discussion is the “winnowing” in the psychological dimension of seminary life. Seminary staff—in coordination with licensed mental health personnel who understand Catholicism and the challenges of the ordained ministry—should follow the psychological health of seminarians over a longer period, with an increasing eye on career prognoses.
 
There is a growing sense, too, that ordained priests do not always know how to take care of themselves, i.e., to rest, to cultivate private and group prayer, to maintain theological updating, to enjoy the arts, to work out, to write, to give presentations and retreats for a change of pace, and to prepare for retirement. Obesity, overwork, and alcohol abuse afflict the mood, ministry, and self-esteem of many priests. Could seminaries train future priests in the good habits and attitudes of post ordination life? This is the hope.
 
The Church, obviously, wishes to improve upon a sorry record of ordaining or incardinating priests who are pathologically unsound. Until recently the Church was suspicious of psychology and depended upon its own observations of a candidate’s life in the chapel, the classroom, and the common room. Seminary life hides as much as it reveals. A factor of seminary secrecy was longevity—if a seminarian hid his true doubts and disfunctions and did not rock the boat, it became harder and harder each year for authorities to dismiss him. Secrecy was a factor for the seminarian, as he came closer to his ordination date, it is harder to confide personal misgivings to seminary officials. Like all people, seminarians can deny their problems. And, in my day [a half century ago] nobody ever asked me about anything. I was in the seminary for twelve years, and I can honestly say that I was never given either a battery of psychological tests or a sit-down with a board of examiners, aside from academic testing for a course.
 
For me, the closest thing to an outside assessment did not come from a staff member or superior. In novitiate [year #7 in my training when I was 21] the novices were required to write an evaluation of each of their classmates before the superiors’ vote for admission to simple vows. “Peer evaluation” was popular back in the 1960’s. Each of us would then meet to review the results with the novice master, who in my time fancied himself as something of a psychologist, which he was not. [He himself left the order and married after my class completed novitiate and professed simple vows.] By some twist of fate, on the night of my review the novice master was away for meetings, and my reviews were assessed by the assistant novice master, an unflappable individual who years later would “transgender.”
 
When he reviewed each point, I was surprised that most of my classmates evaluated me positively. There were about thirty of us left by that point, down from forty-three. We came to one of my last evaluations, though, and I was struck by [an anonymous] classmate’s impression of my life trajectory. He gave me high grades for friendliness and felt I would be an effective priest. But then my seven-year classmate added this: “I do worry that beneath his outwardly positive attitude, Tom suffers from a profound inner loneliness that may became harder and harder to cope with as he ages.” The assistant novice master asked me, “is this true?” I said I wasn’t aware of it, but inside me, I was anxious and unhappy a good part of the time. He nodded and moved on.
 
Did I ever figure out who wrote this correct prediction? I had an idea, and truthfully, I respected him very much over the years. But we never talked face to face about his concern, and I never followed up my doubts with superiors, for the same reason athletes never visit the team doctor. [“They’ll take me out of the lineup.”] Well, three years later we were packing for our solemn vow [lifelong profession] retreat, ten years into the seminary, and my insightful classmate knocked on my door and asked me, “Are you really going through with this?” I answered affirmatively. The next morning, he did not make the trip for solemn vow retreat, and he departed the order to pursue a challenging humanitarian profession. That was 52 years ago. I was sorry to see him go. Perhaps we could have helped each other. Very slowly in my order and in others, the admission/review/evaluation process improved to a point where more open and honest evaluations were a feature of common seminary life; but not fast enough to meet the needs of all candidates for solemn vows and holy orders.
 
PSYCHOLOGY AND FAITH: HOW DO THEY MESH?
 
Seminary rectors and bishops are urged to consider closely in priestly studies three components in the life of every seminarian—psychological, spiritual, and intellectual—as they are interrelated to strong mental and spiritual health. In truth, everyone in Church ministry, indeed all of us who call ourselves Christians and Catholics, deserve regular opportunities to reflect upon our own health, our intellectual hunger, and our enthusiasm for the things of the Holy Spirit. Sadly, we do not talk much about this. One reason is our overkill of “legalism” in the Western Roman Church, particularly regarding the Sacrament of Penance. This sacrament has degenerated over the centuries to a brief encounter climaxed by the formal absolution. Yet, the essence of Penance is rebirth in Christ and a renewal of the spiritual journey along the lines listed above. It can never be trivialized. Church law and practice, in fact, recognizes such a thing as a “general confession” which, in the best of circumstances, includes a retelling of the major sins and moral failures of one’s life with an assessment of how one is living now, at this juncture of life, and how one is engaged in psychological, intellectual, and spiritual growth. One of the most basic principles of the spiritual life: if you are not engaged in growth, you are falling away from God.
 
Does this process of confessional rebirth have a psychological component? Absolutely. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas [1225-1274] defines profound sadness [acedia or hopelessness in his day, depression in ours] as “the pain of the soul.” He warns against excessive sorrow, which can lead to despair and distance us from God, who is the source of hope. Aquinas actually recommends treatments for destructive attitudes and behaviors:
 
[Self] Pity: Cultivate compassion for others.
Anxiety: Trust in divine providence.
Envy: Appreciate the blessings of others.
[Depression] Torpor: Engage in virtuous activities and seek joy. Remember that these remedies can help alleviate sadness and guide us toward happiness.
 
Aquinas adds: "a hurtful thing hurts yet more if we keep it shut up, because the soul is more intent on it: whereas if it be allowed to escape, the soul's intention is dispersed as it were on outward things, so that the inward sorrow is lessened." (I-II q. 38 a. 2).
 
Six hundred years later in1886, a German physician, Josef Breuer, discovered that hypnotized patients talked more freely about their past lives in ways that brought them better understanding and acceptance of the difficulties of their past. Sigmund Freud embraced Breuer’s “Talking Cure” which eventually became known as psychoanalysis, with or without hypnosis. Psychoanalysis is essentially getting to know your true self with the goal of a better lifestyle. As a psychotherapist myself, I can tell you that many patients were reluctant or refused to “go deep.” A typical treatment request: “Teach me some techniques so I feel better.” My MD friends hear “prescribe something” all the time.
 
I need to interject here that the relationship between Freud and the Catholic Church is very strained because of the doctor’s published views on several issues across the board. However, Adam A.J. Deville’s “The shrink and the spiritual director: Freud and the Jesuits” [2019] is a fascinating essay that discusses how the Jesuits—and other Catholic practitioners and communities--have integrated psychoanalysis into ministry. Several years ago, Pope Francis told an interviewer that he himself had undergone six months of psychoanalysis at some point in his life as a Jesuit.
 
Aquinas’s admonishment to promote the verbalization of pain is a backbone of modern psychotherapy. What neither Aquinas, nor Breuer, nor Freud could appreciate in their times was the physical operation of the brain. In 1951 doctors discovered a drug [today called imipramine] which alleviated severe depression and discouragement. Medical science pressed forward to explore medications like imipramine that might alter the neurotransmitters of the brain: by the 1980’s the neurotransmitter serotonin was isolated as the “quarterback of the central nervous system” even though how and why this particular neurotransmitter [the backbone of such drugs as Prozac] aids in management of mood disorder “is still not fully understood,” as that long instruction sheet with the pills is honest enough to admit.
 
A parish minister who enjoys his or her work will inevitably be approached for advice or support about anywhere and anytime. People seek the counsel of the priest inside and outside the confessional, to be sure—but consider deacons, youth ministers, hospital visitors, and the wide range of other ministers functioning with diocesan and parish blessing. Any of us involved in ministry have the same obligation as our medical confreres, the Hippocratic Oath: “Do no harm.” At the same time, we need enough skill to do the right things, too, and this is a skill set that gets neglected in ministerial training.
 
As you may have read between the lines of my recent posts, seminaries are the canaries in the coal mine of pastoral life. The quality of seminarians’ prayer life, learning, and psychological bearings depend on the eight years [with possibly a ninth] in the major seminary. The Vatican and the U.S. bishops are working now to improve that experience, and their measure of success or failure will directly impact the quality of U.S. parish life. It stands to reason that we owe a more profound scope of preparation to parish ministers and Catholic school staff, and in fact to all baptized Catholics, period.
 
Fr. Anthony J Stoeppel of St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in the Archdiocese of San Francisco posted an interesting essay on how seminarians are trained to hear confessions. He notes that “Some seminaries offer courses on pastoral counseling and psychology to present a more complete picture of the human person. Such courses also give seminarians an understanding of mental illness and teach them how to work with psychiatric and psychological professionals to help the penitent fully heal.”
 
Mental health, to be sure, is getting a lot of press coverage these days, particularly the sufferings of the young. Father Huard’s essay above did a good job in isolating several specific psychological issues that seminarian candidates share with their peers and bring to admission, issues in fact that impact a wide swath of society: anxiety and depression, trauma, isolation, and poor interpersonal skills, complicated by a breakdown in reading skills and academic performance attributed to the Covid-19 interruption in normal schooling. Add to that the toll of drug overdose, the “gender issues” and the social divide we live with in this country.
 
While some who approach us will obviously need a step-up to a licensed practitioner, there is nothing to stop us from assisting ourselves and our people in the community of our own parishes. In the next post on this stream, I will discuss how the Sacrament of Penance brings a holistic peace—the kind that comes from knowing and acknowledging one’s true self, and how we can all create the atmosphere where this can happen.