Issue Date
Fr.
Eduard Perrone . . .
Focuses On The
Spiritual Sabotage That Has Devastated Seminaries
(Special to The Wanderer)
DETROIT
— As a team of U.S. bishops, including the Most Rev. Fabian Bruskewitz of
Lincoln, Neb., headed to Detroit to conduct an investigation of the
archdiocese’s Sacred Heart Seminary, a Detroit priest sounded off with some
practical recommendations of what to look for, and where.
Fr. Eduard Perrone, pastor since 1994 of the renowned Assumption Grotto Church
— known far and wide for its beautiful liturgies and outstanding liturgical
music — and a priest since 1978, wrote in his parish bulletin October 16 that a
major area for exploration is the psychological brainwashing that prospective
candidates for the priesthood must endure on the path to Ordination, and the
inculcation of a cynical attitude that destroys faith.
The issue of homosexuals in the seminary, he observed, is only a “small if
necessary focus of this investigation.”
What the bishops’ team must primarily do, he suggested, is examine the teaching
of professors who have been “dizzying the brains of seminarians with confusing
accounts of some pivotal teachings of the Catholic Church.”
“Young men entering the seminary usually do not do so to become rebels against
the Magisterium and defamers of Catholic Tradition. Rather, this is a thing
inculcated in them over a period of years of ‘formation’,” he wrote.
“They are tutored in the subtle art of theological ambiguity, of how to
conserve a veneer of Catholicism while personally believing and practicing what
is contrary to the faith. Especially through the technique of an oppressive
psychological conditioning, they are led to espouse aberrant theological views
(for example, to regard the Sacred Scripture as mere literature whose inerrancy
is to be debunked; or to doubt that our Lord possessed divine knowledge during
His life on earth).
“They are permitted to hold and sometimes openly express opinions on matters
contrary to the defined teaching of the Pope, such as the moral impossibility
of women priests (an issue now forever determined by the definition of Pope
John Paul II). They may be taught by word or example to disregard liturgical
norms.
“Much more insidious than these is the infusion of a cynical mental attitude
regarding holy things and defined beliefs, an attitude due to years of
‘formation’ in classroom teaching and group discussions, by faculty
evaluations, and in psychological counseling. Often there is no single thing
that is the cause of this kind of malformation. It’s rather the cumulative
effect of a twisted and persistent conditioning which clouds reason, foments
arrogance, stifles the devout life, and, in the end, destroys the faith of the
seminarian.
“Behold the result: the unbelieving, rebellious, impious priest who enters the
parish to undo the holy apostolic and Catholic faith and root out any vestige
of Catholic piety in the faithful.
“If someone were to demand evidence for this dire account of some of our
seminaries,” he continued, “I would call as my witnesses you, the Catholic
laity, who, without knowing how it came about, have seen and heard their
‘products’ operating in our parishes. Malformed priests have endangered or
destroyed the spiritual lives of many Catholics, some of whom have stopped
practicing the faith altogether.
“Such priests have led the laity to doubt Catholic doctrines, to denigrate the
word of God, to neglect Confession, to make light of sinful matter — even of
gravely sinful things. Finally, these priests have attempted to pacify their
troubled consciences by assuring themselves and their parishioners that, in the
end, all will be saved anyway.
“Sad to tell, there is yet more to this dismal picture. This concerns not the
seminary directly but what precedes it. This is the process of interview and
evaluation of the candidates. Here they are screened so that those deemed
unsuitable are barred from entry into the seminary.
“While one might think it a good and necessary thing, one would be shocked to
learn that those refused are not those who were found wanting in orthodox
Catholic faith or who [fail to] practice traditional forms of Catholic piety
but rather those who give evidence of those very things. The special tool
employed for this process of exclusion of candidates is psychological testing
with a follow-up evaluation by a psychologist.
“If a candidate is found to be too ‘rigid’ (a cherished term in their lexicon)
because he holds to certain Catholic beliefs and religious practices, he is
rejected as one unsuitable for the diocesan priesthood. One may wonder who
these expert psychologists are who wield such power in determining priestly
vocations. I answer with a single example.
“The archdiocese employed a woman psychologist who, among her other attributes,
regarded [as] unacceptable any candidates who agreed with the Church’s mandate
of clerical celibacy. Without a doubt, her evaluation caused several candidates
to be barred from entering our seminary. She has now left her job, but not on
account of her views, but because she took off to ‘marry’ a priest of the
archdiocese.
“All these and many more shameful and underhanded dealings with seminarians and
seminary candidates have been kept from the devout Catholic faithful who have
continued to pray — rightly of course, but naively — for more vocations to the
priesthood.
“I believe that we do not have a true vocations problem, but rather a crisis
fabricated by those who are depriving the Church of many potentially good
priests and unleashing upon the Church some intellectually and morally unfit
men to assume the life and work of the priesthood.
“Not all of their efforts have succeeded. There have been some very fine men
ordained in recent years. Nor would it be true to say that all our seminary
professors have been dissidents.
