"Discerning the Call" of the American Catholic Priesthood

A new documentary from Fordham's Center on Religion and Culture is exploring how changes in American culture have impacted the Catholic priesthood. To find out more, WFUV's David Escobar speaks with Jay Doherty, the film's co-director and a fellow FUV reporter. They discuss the stories of the priests and religious people in his feature film "Discerning the Call."

TRANSCRIPT:

ESCOBAR: This is Fordham Conversations. I'm David Escobar. When you were a kid and an adult asked you what you wanted to be when you grow up, your answer was probably something like a police officer, or a nurse, or a teacher. That's all to say the one answer you wouldn't expect to hear is a Catholic priest. But that wasn't always the case.

Up until the first half of the 1900s, becoming a priest was fairly normal, and many Catholic Americans even welcomed the idea of their sons being ordained. Men entered the seminary younger, and the ordination process was more efficient. But today, the thought of joining the priesthood rarely crosses the mind of a young man, and part of that might be due to the church's overall decline.

Since the 1970s, the number of Catholic baptisms, marriages, and funerals in the U. S. has been shrinking, and between 1970 and 2020, the total number of Catholic priests decreased nationally by 40%. The cultural phenomenon behind the decline of priests is the subject of the Fordham Center on Religion and Culture's new documentary, Discerning the Call, Change in the American Priesthood.

The doc draws on an extensive history and brings together the voices of over 20 priests and seminarians to paint a picture of the state of the American priesthood today. Joining me now is the co director, co editor, and really co everything of this documentary, Jay Doherty. Jay, thanks for joining me.

DOHERTY: Thank you so much for having me, David. It's an honor to be with you.

ESCOBAR: I am so excited to get into this with you. I wanted to start by playing a bit of the trailer for this documentary, just to give listeners a bit of context about what we're going to be talking about.

DOHERTY: Please.

ESCOBAR: Take a listen.

[DOC SOUNDBITE]

ESCOBAR: I wanted to just start by asking you, how did this all come to fruition?

DOHERTY: Sure. So, this whole project is made possible by the Duffy Fellows Program at the Fordham University Center on Religion and Culture. My partner on this entire project from the very beginning, uh, is a Fordham senior, Patrick Cullinan.

And Patrick had an idea, uh, I believe for a podcast to, to, uh, Document the discernment stories of people and in his life that were had were in religious life whether they were priests or monks or um other people and Over the past 10 months or so. We've been working on creating a 35 minute 40 minute feature film that will debut this month

ESCOBAR: And we'll talk a little bit more about the specifics of the feature film, especially you kind of segmented into like three different camps of cultural movements from my understanding.

So before we get into that, I wanted to just ask a little bit about. You know, you're talking with Catholic priests, maybe not the most accessible people all the time to kind of get into their feelings. They're people we see at church. They're people we hold on pedestals in some communities. And I'm just wondering, was there anything that you learned from these priests, I guess, maybe a little bit more broadly that surprised you?

DOHERTY: David, that's a really good question. And I think the most fascinating thing is something that you actually brought up, which is that. A lot of times people don't, even devout Catholics or self identifying Catholics, don't think about what the life of a priest is like, or why priests even come to discern that that's a vocation for them.

It is an enormous commitment, the current requirements of of celibacy, of poverty in many cases, um, of, of obedience in, in, for, for many religious orders, um, are quite demanding, especially in contrast to a lot of the social structures of the present day in America. Um, and so I think that was one of the biggest draws, actually, the, the big contrast to understand the church's role in American society and how it plays a role in discernment.

Um, to answer your question, I think, um, It was really interesting to get a glimpse into these priests lives. Um, each of them had very distinct stories, and most of them, we found, kind of mirrored the large scale generational changes, uh, that happen in American society. So, for example, at Fordham, we have, um, three Jesuit communities.

The older Jesuits are from Murray Weigel. They live there. They're, it's, that's the retirement community. Uh, community for the entire East Coast province of the Society of Jesus. So there's priests from all over the East Coast that live there, not just at Fordham. Then there's, and that, that's all generally everyone there is above the age of 80.

So we interviewed three men from there and they all told stories of how almost all of them, uh, actually all of them, except for one entered immediately outside of, out of high school. So one priest we talked to, Father Ugo Naciarone, entered when he was. He wanted to enter when he was 16. 17. He's now 91. So he knows virtually nothing else in his, you know, entire life.

He's been a priest for 70 plus years within the order and so he, his story was incredibly fascinating and it's a sharp contrast to what we see today with young men Up in Dunwoody and Yonkers, uh, we had a, we interviewed three priests from up there and all of them entered way out of college or even much older.

So, I think one change that we see in talking to all these different priests and seminarians from different communities is the world that they're growing up in, plus, The age that they enter

ESCOBAR: And let's talk about kind of the world that they grew up in because you break this up into. I want to start first with the 1960s, right?

So what from your research and from the conversations you're having with people, what's going on in the 1960s? That's informing the Catholic church and kind of the culture around the church.

DOHERTY: That's another great question. The 1960s, it's so funny, we asked all priests of all different er, uh, ages about the 1960s, and all of the ones who were on the older side all had very funny things to say about the 1960s, and to some, the, the one word that they used almost all The most frequently was crazy.

They just thought it was a change. It was a radical change. It wasn't just a change in women's rights. It wasn't a change, just a change in, um, the sexual revolution, the cultural, the resistance to authority, uh, in the drug scene, in the new space program. It was a massive point of change. There was a lot of liberalization, even in the church.

The second Vatican council, uh, happened at that point. And so there was so much change going on that. It almost, in the words of Father David Stump, who we interviewed, the world turned upside down in that moment. And so the 60s were an incredible turning point, as I mentioned, for Catholic discernment, and for the Church, and for America.

What's most interesting, though, to compare it to is the previous decades before the 60s. So the 40s and 50s, um, We interviewed Cardinal Dolan. He often, he described it as a Catholic culture in the United States, that he said, for example, there was a Catholic culture in the United States. Tim Perrin, a Jesuit Scholastic who's living in Spelman, described it as the water you swim, and it was just natural.

It was a normal part of life that, in general, if you were living in America, it was kind of the assumption, in the words of Father George Sears, who we also interviewed, If you were going to be kind of a good citizen or just a part of a community that faith had to be part of your life with the 60s and the subsequent decades, that whole presumption kind of changed.

And that was a very big element of our documentary and something that I think one must cover if they're going to explore this topic.

ESCOBAR: And I think another thing that somebody has to cover is. The two thousands with, you know, obviously the famous story breaking out of the Boston Globe, taking down an archdiocese in Boston.

I want to move over to that because I think that's so interesting to think about how it's affecting obviously parishioners in these schools. And we know about a lot of that because it's been reported on some of it hasn't been reported on. But I think You know, there's a general understanding of like, it did turn a lot of people away from the church, but for people that are priests in these church priests, seminarians, deacons, how did that time in the church affect them?

And what did you kind of find out in your documentary?

DOHERTY: That's a very good question as well. There. were, as you mentioned, horrific reports throughout the church in those years, in the early 2000s of clerical sex abuse, of child sex abuse, and just some horrendous reports from the church and, more disturbingly in many cases, how many Vatican officials actually covered up a lot of the abuse or didn't adequately punish the people who were inflicting it upon people.

And that is a crucial part in the story of American Catholic priestly discernment. Because not only, like you mentioned, it affects parishioners, but one of the very interesting things, in fact, one of our interviewees, Tom Worcester, Father Tom Worcester, points this out. It also affects how not only the Church is perceived publicly, how people who might feel a deep call to the priesthood would now be so much more hesitant to even think that that's a proper thing to do or that they would be safe or welcomed.

was for me personally, a very interesting component to this film. We often think, reasonably as I do, uh, about the parishioner's experiences, about the, the survivor's experiences, but If a person in all their goodwill and their conscience is actively and legitimately discerning a call to a religious life or a vocation, how does this horrendous element of the church that only really recently came to light, how does that impact their discernment?

And that was something we wanted to unpack in this film for sure.

ESCOBAR: I guess there's this idea now too of, well, the world might just becoming a little bit, becoming a little bit more secular. Um, but you know, I, I think there's an argument to be made that not all religious orders and churches have suffered in the way that the Catholic Church has in the past couple of, um, decades.

So. What do you think specifically about secularism and just in general, I guess, about our world now has been turning away people from the Catholic Church and what have kind of priests discuss with you in your documentary?

DOHERTY: It's a really interesting question because It all has to do with demographics, especially today.

And our film, as you mentioned, it's discerning the call change in the American priesthood, so we generally focused on the United States. However, Cardinal Dolan was one of the many bishops who was recently sent to the Synod on synodality in Rome um, last fall. And There, uh, an enormous number of bishops from all around the world gathered in Rome to discuss this topic of synodality.

And one of the things Cardinal Dolan mentioned in our interview, uh, with us, and by the way Cardinal Dolan is the, the Archbishop of New York, he told us that in his interaction with bishops from Africa and from Asia, that while bishops from North America and Europe were complaining that people weren't going to church, that people weren't getting married in their churches, that there weren't any funerals or baptisms, that Priests that the the churches in Africa, they couldn't handle the amount of people that were going to their churches They didn't have enough priests to staff the weddings.

They didn't have enough priests to staff the baptisms So the kind of ebbs and flows of the church tend to vary very dramatically based on demographics and We we've seen that of course throughout the entire history of the world That somehow the church Continues on and in amidst the rising and falling of different empires and such, but it's really interesting to examine now To answer your question about secularism, I think that's a really important point.

One of the downsides of American culture, in my opinion, in general, is often a deep focus on the self rather than on communities, and that's not necessarily just in society but also in how we think about careers, how we think about money, and this idea that generally if we suck enough into ourselves that somehow we're going to be happy.

And one of the most compelling messages In this film, that I think came across from the priest is that the true way in theory, uh, that they propose to live, live out one's life, is to actually do the opposite of sucking everything in, and that's to give yourself away entirely, and that And in the context of secularism is one of the downsides that they point, that they felt was, was very, uh, prominent in today and relevant to today's cultural context and circumstances.

So certainly the American cultural context was not very, is not very supportive of religious vocations at the moment. But I think the church moves and, and breathes in different ways and in different continents and different ways in the world. And, uh, this whole picture was certainly vital part of our documentary.

ESCOBAR: I want to pivot back a little bit, um, to the idea of kind of the state of the church, um, especially in, um, in the United States. So we're in this moment where you're talking about the bishops all around Europe, all around America kind of being upset with, um, their, maybe their attendance, the rate of people being baptized and receiving sacraments.

What's their plan? What do you think that in their minds? What do you think is the solution to kind of this turn away from the church?

DOHERTY: That's a brilliant question, and it's one that I think a lot of church leaders and priests are asking right now. There are certainly major divides, as there have been since for 2, 000 years within the church, about where to go ideologically, theologically, politically, etc.

And what we found, one of the most interesting things demographically, actually, is that the most of the priests who entered in the 1960s, 70s and 80s tended to be way more politically liberal and left. And the ones who are joining today are much more, not only theologically conservative and orthodox, but also more politically right leaning as well, especially in social conservatism.

And so that's an interesting shift right now, especially in America. Um, I think What the church will probably do, just as a person who is interested in it and observes, is trying to stay true to its core values and what they believe to be revealed to the world, but also trying to Uh, present the truth in a way that is compelling and that is adaptable to a generation and to a world that has changed so much since the time of the early Church, and it has continued to change.

I think the Church has done that, uh, throughout different languages, throughout different parts of the world, through all sorts of different initiatives, and I suspect that they won't uh, won't stop anytime soon.

ESCOBAR: The last thing I want to ask you is, and you know, this is a very broad question, but what do you hope people walk away with when they come and see your film?

And what kind of, are you hoping it, this leads to?

DOHERTY: That's a good, another good question. I think, um, One thing I love for people to walk away with is actually a quote along the lines of Father Brian Dunkel, who we interviewed. He's a, the Loyola Fellow. He's on the faculty of Boston College, but he's a visiting Loyola Fellow at Fordham this year.

He had a brilliant quote. We often, especially in the American culture, wars can focus a lot. Uh, and in Catholic circles on this idea of the vocations crisis and no one's coming to be a priest. No one's coming to, the society's falling apart because we don't have priests, we don't have And What Fr. Dunkel says is that it's not actually that concerning to him that there are less vocations.

What's more concerning, in his words, is that fewer people are going to church. And from that, more broadly, that there are lesser spiritual communities or faith filled groups of people who gather frequently together in a peaceful, loving group setting to Kind of gather around or worship some transcendent variable.

That is a really interesting sociological and theological sort of out, sort of branch from the work that we did, that we found in this documentary. And I think one concern And one, uh, element that I would hope people walk away with is to say maybe the way we can look at vocations and discernment is that they can naturally emerge out of healthy, loving, peaceful communities rather than a sort of intensely doctrinaire or, uh, aggressive, uh, Version of of of any sort of religion, and I don't mean to at all Impose that or speak on behalf of my partner Patrick or on or the Center on religion and culture I'm only speaking from my perspective when I say that because I think that a lot of these priests spoke that message and in a message that kind of breathed through all of this is that the church wants to welcome people and in in vocations should sprout out of that desire to welcome

ESCOBAR: Well, the doc is called Discerning the Call: Change in the American Priesthood, and its co director is Jay Doherty.

Thanks for joining me, Jay.

DOHERTY: Thank you, David.