Two pastors to serve as mentors for seminarians

As an archdiocesan vocation director, Father Steve Bruno knows the difference between good and bad problems, and this is definitely a good problem.

With seminary enrollment for the Archdiocese of New Orleans at its highest point in 20 years – 28 seminarians are studying for the archdiocese at Notre Dame Seminary and seven young men are enrolled at St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict – Father Bruno might have ended up being stretched too thin trying to maintain personal contact with each seminarian.

That’s the main reason Archbishop Gregory Aymond decided to ask two pastors to serve the Vocation Office as part-time directors of seminarians at Notre Dame and St. Ben’s while continuing to serve as pastors.

“Archbishop Aymond wants to have strong contact with the guys, and even with me being in the office fulltime, I was by myself,” Father Bruno said. “He wanted to give me some help to make sure the guys at each seminary had regular visits and contacts. He wanted to give them an ear to hear their stories or complaints or progress in the seminary.”

Pastors will ‘journey’

Father John Arnone, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Violet and St. Bernard Parish in St. Bernard, will work with the Notre Dame seminarians, and Father Gil Martin, pastor of St. John of the Cross Parish in Lacombe, will be a liaison for the men studying at St. Ben’s.

Each priest will spend at least one day a month visiting the seminarians, allowing time for them to discuss privately the issues or challenges they are facing.   

“I want to try to be seen as a mentor, someone who journeys with the guys through their formation as they prepare for parish ministry,” Father Arnone said. “I want to give them encouragement and support. We want to see how we can be more pastoral to the seminarians.”

“I’m not there to be a spiritual director, but I am there to make sure they are getting spiritual direction,” Father Martin said. “I’m not there to be their confessor, but I’m there to make sure they’re taking part in the sacramental life of the church. I’ll be available in any way I can be helpful to them.”

One of the benefits of serving as a sounding board, Father Martin said, is that he will be able to spot minor issues as they crop up and work through resolutions.

“I’ve got a responsibility to the archbishop, too, that if there is something going on in their lives or if they are having a problem, I need to be the one to bring it to their attention or to his attention,” Father Martin said.

Father Marian was a guide

Father Martin views his role similar to that of Benedictine Father Marian Larmann, who was rector of St. Ben’s in the 1960s when Father Martin was a seminarian.

“He was on a big kick the whole year of having balance in your life,” Father Martin said. “That didn’t mean a lot to me at the time, but now I realize how wise that was. If you’re in the seminary, you’ve got to have a prayer life and you’ve got to take care of your studies, but you also have to take care of your body to keep healthy and have a social life. You need to have time for your family. You’ve got to have some kind of balance.”

Father Arnone said while his plan is to visit Notre Dame one day a month, the schedule might be adjusted when he sees what the demand is.

“It will involve going to Mass, eating lunch and meeting with any of the guys who want to meet, and then hopefully it will end with supper,” Father Arnone said. “That supper might take the form of the New Orleans seminarians cooking a special dinner or getting pizza together.”

The goal is for the seminarians to feel there is “somebody there for them to guide them and give them what they need and some attention,” Father Arnone said.

Goes beyond textbooks

Many of the lessons Father Arnone may be able to teach the seminarians won’t be found in their textbooks.

“Sometimes you get the feeling (as a priest) that stuff falls off the plate because people are pulling you from every direction – because they want a priest,” Father Arnone said. “That’s when you’ve got to turn back to prayer and say, ‘OK, Lord, help me to remember, it’s not me they’re coming to see, it’s you.’ As a priest, it’s a constant challenge to maintain that healthy prayer life.”

Father Martin held a wildly successful vocation event at St. John of the Cross earlier this year, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, in which priests, seminarians and religious sisters were honored for pursuing their vocations. He said while the responsibility for fostering vocations rests with everyone in a parish, a special responsibility falls to priests themselves.

Priests need to encourage

“Whenever I suspect someone might have a vocation, I always sit down and talk to them,” Father Martin said. “I might be totally off, but sometimes I’m on. I really do believe for a lot of guys, no one’s ever talked to them. You need to bring it up to their attention.”

Happy priests, he said, are the key.

“I love what I do,” Father Martin said. “The kids see so many priests as old grouches. If anybody called me that, I’d be devastated. I remember when I was a student at Notre Dame Seminary, some of my classmates had said they had never seen a happy priest. I guess it was at that time that I said, ‘If I’m ordained a priest, I’m going to be a happy priest.’”

Archbishop Aymond said he sensed openness to religious life that is growing throughout the archdiocese, and not simply because of the increase in numbers.

“I see the movement of God,” he said. “The Spirit is moving.”

Peter Finney Jr. can be reached at [email protected].