Seminary rector reflects on his 10 years of grace – and Mardi Gras

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

For virtually all of his 28 years as a priest, Father James Wehner, a native of Pittsburgh, has devoted himself to the formation of future priests, first as a doctoral student and later as a seminary professor, vice rector and rector.

Now, the 53-year-old priest who in the last 10 years as rector-president of Notre Dame Seminary has sparked tangible growth in the theologate’s enrollment, faculty and facilities is returning to his home diocese to serve as pastor of a newly merged mega-parish.

“Twenty-seven of my 28 years as a priest have been in non-parish ministry, so I’m a little nervous,” Father Wehner said, laughing. “It’s not about the work, but it’s that I’ve been living in what I would call ‘institutional living.’ Twenty of the 28 years have been living with young men and being kind of the spiritual father of the house. I will be shifting to living within a parish, so internally, that’s going to be a transition I will have to work through.”

His new parish is not just any parish.

The Diocese of Pittsburgh recently completed a strategic restructuring plan that reduced the number of parishes from 180 to 58. The newly constituted Divine Grace Parish has been formed from the merger of three parishes and is now the largest in the diocese and one of the largest in Pennsylvania. With a circumference of 226 miles, Divine Grace will have 20,000 Catholics – Father Wehner says he’s been told “the number should be closer to 30,000 after evangelization and catechetical efforts” – and will offer 13 weekend Masses.

In his new pastoral assignment, Father Wehner will oversee three parochial vicars and two permanent deacons. The parish also has a school for 230 students in grades K-8 and a school of religion for another 850 children.

 A first-year seminarian also has been assigned to the large parish “to learn how a new parish is formed and to experience the transition of leadership,” Father Wehner said, adding, “God help him!”

Not much has fazed Father Wehner since coming from Steelers country in 2012 to embrace a new kind of black and gold. In his 10 years as rector-president of Notre Dame Seminary – the longest assignment of his priesthood – Father Wehner said what he cherishes the most is seeing nearly 200 seminarians make the faith journey to ordination.

“That’s an impact across the southern church,” Father Wehner said.

When Father Wehner was given an icon of the Feast of the Presentation at his final Notre Dame graduation in May, he told Archbishop Gregory Aymond that his tenure in New Orleans was “the most fulfilling assignment I've ever had.”

“We don't get ordained for self fulfillment – we get ordained for ministry,” Father Wehner said. “Having said that, this has been just a grace-filled assignment.”

Father Wehner said every five years or so, the seminary faculty “sees something different” in those coming in as seminarians, and they have to be flexible enough to “read the sign of the times.”

It could be an emphasis on eucharistic adoration or evangelization or theological formation, he said.

“Each generation has this (particular) point of view,” Father Wehner said. “Often, it's connected with the pope – from John Paul II to Pope Benedict and Pope Francis. So that requires the formation program to adjust so that we don't remain static. We have a great formation team. We have 14 priests in full-time ministry, and they are very diverse in age and experience. Our collaboration is what really holds the team together.”

Some of Father Wehner’s accomplishments are visible. In 2012, then-archdiocesan development director Peter Quirk was just concluding a $2 million campaign, headed up by Joseph Canizaro, to help recruit and retain faculty from across the country.

A $7 million renovation of the main seminary building followed, spearheaded by Gayle and Tom Benson, and another $11 million campaign by the Bensons led to a complete renovation of the bedrooms and classrooms in St. Joseph’s Hall, to the left of the main seminary building. Other major campaign leaders were Phyllis Taylor and Frank and Paulette Stewart. 

Enrollment increased to 152 last year, a 65% increase from 2012, Father Wehner’s first year. Notre Dame Seminary is now the second-largest of the country’s 41 theologates (Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, Maryland is the largest). Notre Dame serves dioceses in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina, an increase of nine dioceses from 2012.

Father Wehner said the biggest changes in seminary formation over the last decades have been a strengthened admissions process, with a stronger focus on psychological evaluation and human formation.

“I mean, these guys are coming from a broken world where there is pornography, secularism and sort of ‘self-preference’ – what makes me feel good?” Father Wehner said. “When you’re raised in that social media culture and there is instability in family life, the young man who comes into the seminary brings that with him. So, using the resources of counseling – if therapy is needed – and other types of professional services, that helps the guy have a healthier approach to discernment. There has been a renewed commitment to the Eucharist, and the men are very serious about celibacy. It's good to see them bring that zeal. We have to form it.”

All seminaries in the U.S. will officially implement the Vatican’s new Program of Priestly Formation in July 2023. One major change to the seminary program is the addition of what is called the “propaedeutic” stage.

“Before seminarians begin their formal studies, they would live at the seminary for a full year and do very little academics,” Father Wehner said. “The whole approach is on human and spiritual formation rather than getting accepted and, bam, they go immediately into philosophy.  For that whole year, we’re giving them workshops and lectures so that when they finish, they can move into the pre-theology program (the discipleship phase).”

The other major change is that seminarians will not be ordained to the transitional diaconate until they have finished their theology studies. 

Currently, the Archdiocese of New Orleans ordains transitional deacons in May of their third year of studies and then assigns the new deacons to parish internships from June through October. The deacons then return to the seminary to complete coursework in advance of their ordination to the priesthood the following June.

“The Vatican is saying they prefer that seminarians wait until they are finished with seminary and then let them be ordained (to the diaconate) and then have an uninterrupted approach to ministry back in their own diocese without the weight of seminary formation,” Father Wehner said. “It’s to let them transition more naturally back into their diocese. What’s happening now is that you finish at the seminary, and two weeks later you’re ordained a priest, you get your assignment and you go to work.”

Notre Dame Seminary will be able to finish its program in December of the seminarian’s fourth year. The seminarian could be ordained as a transitional deacon that December and then spend the next six months ministering in a parish, before ordination to the priesthood in June.

Father Wehner has been in regular contact with Notre Dame’s incoming rector-president, Father Josh Rodrigue, whose tenure will officially begin July 1. Father Rodrigue, a priest of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, has served since 2017 on the faculty of the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

“I send a morning bulletin to the whole community seven days a week, so he’s been able to see the rhythm of the year,” Father Wehner said.

Father Wehner leaves New Orleans with incredibly warm feelings.

“Archbishop Aymond took a risk,” he said. “He became the archbishop in 2009, post-Katrina, and the seminary was still recovering from all that. From what he tells me, he did a consultation with the board of trustees and with the Presbyteral Council and it was recommended that he should consider a national search. Since the 1970s, the rectors have been local.

“For him to take a risk and bring in somebody he did not know, that was a big risk. I’m very grateful that he took that risk. I’m very grateful that this has been home for 10 years. You can’t be in New Orleans for more than just a couple of years and not call it home. So, I’m grateful to him, to the faculty and the good people of New Orleans.”

He will carry with him his immigrant’s love of Mardi Gras.

“I have a shoe from Muses,” he said. “When I go home to Pittsburgh, people are going to say, ‘Why do you have a woman’s shoe on your bookcase?’ That’ll be a way to catechize the Yankees.”

pfinney@clarionherald.org