ARTICLES
November 2002 ARTICLES
Contents © 2002
by Jim Holman.
All rights reserved.
I'm Outta Here
Convert Discouraged in Seeking Priesthood
By Robert Kumpel
As Goodbye, Good Men continues to top the Catholic book charts, critics to attack author Michael Rose's allegations that seminaries, by institutionalized dissent and the screening out of orthodox applicants, have created false vocations. Even so, more young men who have sought to test their vocations in the nation's seminaries seem to be coming out of the woodwork to confirm the book's charges.
Case in point: Buddy Shepherd, 46, is a Santa Ana resident who converted to Catholicism six years ago. "I converted primarily because of the Tridentine Mass," said Shepherd. "I grew up as a Baptist, but I was attracted to the Catholic Church for most of my life. Just before I became Catholic, I attended an Episcopal church. I was sort of drawn by the liturgy of the Church, but I didn't know anyone who was Catholic, while I did know some people who were Episcopalians."
Shepherd said that after "about ten years of looking at the Episcopal church," he decided "it was O.K., but it wasn't enough." Shepherd said he "went through a period of stagnation for about three years" because he wasn' t getting what he needed. "I started looking around and I found St. Mary's by the Sea in Huntington Beach on the internet. It's one of two parishes in the [Orange] diocese that has an indult [Tridentine] Mass -- the other being the Capistrano Mission. So I went to the Tridentine Mass in July of 1995 and that was what I was looking for. The Novus Ordo Mass has less in it than the Episcopal Mass did."
After converting, Shepherd became aware that there was a shortage of priests and, being single with no attachments, was willing to explore a priestly vocation. "In 1997 I started talking with the diocese of Orange about it," said Shepherd. "Monsignor Murray, who was the vocations director for the diocese at that time, asked me to put it off since I was so newly converted to the Catholic Church. So I put it off until Thanksgiving of 1998, when I started the application process. In January of 1999 I did a 'Come and See' weekend at St. John's seminary in Camarillo. A month later, I visited Mt. Angel, a Benedictine seminary in Oregon, as well."
Shepherd said that he was "a bit more impressed by Mt. Angel," since he had been involved in a Benedictine oblate group. "But in coming back," continued Shepherd, "I attended a vocations dinner at a local church, and after the dinner, Monsignor Murray pulled me aside and said that it would be best for me to change parishes. He suggested I join the parish that hosted the dinner, Holy Spirit in Fountain Valley, which caused me a bit of confusion. He gave me a rather ambiguous explanation, saying that St. Mary's is not a typical parish. That was a true statement because of the traditional nature of a lot of St. Mary's activities, not just the Tridentine Mass. They have two strong Legion of Mary groups, adoration, and several home schooling families connected with the church. It's a rather traditional-leaning church in that regard. I decided to just put that idea aside for the moment, because I wasn't sure how to deal with his request or what I should say about it. I told him I would think about it."
At the time, Shepherd was working for an aerospace firm and decided to resign his position to search out his vocation more fully. He visited the Society of St. John in Pennsylvania and some other more traditional orders in the East. "Nothing really panned out, so by the end of 1999, I came back not really sure what to do," said Shepherd. "During that time, since the diocese of Orange had changed bishops, there was a new vocations director, Monsignor Wilbur Davis. I had an interview in February of 2000 with Monsignor Davis about beginning the application process."
Shepherd said that the interview was "unusual. The first question he asked me was, 'if you became a priest, where would you want to serve?' I already knew that any mention of St. Mary's would go against me, but I decided to go ahead and play the issue out and just deal with it. So I told him, honestly, that if I became a priest of the diocese, I would want to serve at St. Mary' s. When he asked why, I explained that that's where I joined the Catholic Church. He then asked me, 'they don't do the RCIA program there, do they?' And I said, 'no, they don't. They just have an adult inquiry class.' He then stated that 'it's not important to catechize. It's more important to learn the faith traditions of the parish.' I just sort of looked at him and didn't really respond because I already figured I was on bad footing anyway, and I didn't want to push the point any more than I had to. So he asked me if there were any other parishes that I attended, and I mentioned that I went to Our Lady, Queen of Angels in Newport Beach for daily Mass. That piqued his interest and he asked me who the priests were in that parish and told me that he wanted me to get to know them. I wasn't there to be confrontational, so I told him I would consider that.
"We talked about some more things, but I could sense a discouraging atmosphere," continued Shepherd. "He also asked me a question that put me in an awkward position. I'm black and I've lived here [in Orange County] for 15 years, and he asked me, 'how do you feel about being black in Orange County?' Now no one has ever asked me that question! That also colored the interview. He also mentioned that they had made a policy change about seminaries. Under Monsignor Murray, men raised Catholic would go to St. John's and converts went to Mt. Angel. Now all the seminarians were sent to St. John's. I could tell that the interview wasn't a success."
After the interview, Shepherd left with the distinct feeling that Davis was trying to persuade him to steer clear of St. Mary's parish. This began a series of e-mails. "I e-mailed him, saying that 'I felt you were discouraging me from being involved in St. Mary's and I'm sort of curious as to why.' He e-mailed me back almost immediately that there were two reasons. One was that it seemed my parish experience was rather limited, and secondly, he gave me the same ambiguous response that Monsignor Murray gave me, that St. Mary's is not a typical parish. I responded, answering the first charge by telling him that I had attended Mass at, at least, 20 different parishes in the diocese, not counting the ones I visited traveling across country, so my parish experience was far from being limited. To the second item, I said: 'your predecessor, Monsignor Murray, gave me the same answer, so could you please clarify what you mean by that?' The response to the second e-mail was slow in coming and I had to e-mail him a second time to get a response. All I wanted was a clarification. His response to me was that they did not want to have 'that type of influence' going throughout the diocese."
Shepherd said he responded to Murray's last statement in writing. "First of all," I said, "I found his response to be somewhat inconsistent with the alleged desire for diversity in the diocese. Secondly, I felt that it would be difficult to work with someone who was more concerned with whether or not I came from the right type of parish rather than whether I wanted to serve God or not. The response I got to that was extremely belligerent. He wrote, 'I knew you people were like that.' He called me 'obstinate, arrogant and antagonistic.' That took me back. I wasn't expecting that at all. I figured, with him being a vocations director, he wouldn't go popping off like that, particularly in writing! So I responded back, saying, 'I'm sorry that you consider me obstinate, arrogant and antagonistic, but if you look back over my previous e-mails, you will see that all I sought from you was a clarification of your position as to why you don't consider St. Mary's a typical parish. At this point in time, I am disappointed, but I feel it would not be in my best interest to continue corresponding with you to pursue an application for this diocese, if this is the type of response I am going to get.' He sort of sent me back a quick response, apologizing for his reaction, but that was the end of it."
Monsignor Davis told me that he does not recall any of the name-calling Shepherd alleges. "Those conversations took place about two years ago, and as I recall, it was mostly over e-mails," said Davis. "I don't remember saying anything about 'that kind of influence,' but I did tell him that he needed a broader experience of parish life. We want our candidates to experience a diversity of what Catholic parishes are like throughout the diocese, and [St. Mary's] is not a typical parish."
Monsignor Murray says that, since the events described by Shepherd took place a few years ago, he doesn't remember a lot about it. "I don't remember any of the details, but I certainly wouldn't have recommended that he stay away from that parish," said Murray. "My recollection is that he was a recent convert and he needed a little more experience as a Catholic and shouldn't be focused on one parish and nothing else. If you want to be a priest in the diocese, you need to have a better understanding of the greater diocese -- the cultural and ethnic groups of the diocese. St. Mary's by the Sea is a monolingual white parish and is not typical of Orange County. I don't remember anything specific about him [Shepherd], other than telling him to get a better understanding of the greater diocese here in Orange County while he was developing at being a Catholic. We're always a little reluctant to take somebody who's a fairly new convert. We like them to have a few years as a Catholic and so forth. Many people confuse 'conversion' with 'vocation.' In my 20 years as a vocations director, that came up quite often; somebody who was a recent convert, also wanting to become a priest. Beyond that, I really don't remember too much about him or about the circumstances."
Since that time, Shepherd has visited his hometown, Washington, D.C., to check out the vocations atmosphere there. "I applied to the archdiocese and I went there for one of their vocations weekends, not long after Cardinal McCarrick was placed there. He was amiable and seemed to have a good character. I got along with the vocations director, but I was up front about my desire to offer the Tridentine Mass and they told me that if I became a priest there, I would not say the Tridentine Mass."
Shepherd decided not to purse his vocation in the archdiocese of Washington and returned to Orange County. He has since put in a preliminary application with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. "I'm at a point where I am right in the middle between looking at the priesthood and looking at marriage," he said. "I spent a little time in Lincoln, Nebraska, and visited their seminary and liked what I saw. Bishop Bruskewicz is an absolutely wonderful man. But I'm starting to get worn out by all of this nonsense and I just don't have the fervor I had a while back. It's not discouragement, it's ... I'm not as tolerant as I used to be."
Part of the waning tolerance Shepherd speaks of is his unwillingness to go through the seminary hiding his orthodoxy to avoid expulsion. "My weekend at St. John's was a very telling experience in that regard," he said. "I stood out like a sore thumb and a number of guys who were hiding their orthodoxy were cautioning me, 'Buddy, you've got to keep your mouth shut or something will happen!' I just said, 'why? They might as well know.' In the process of being quiet, they [the seminarians] have compromised their stand significantly. They have to knuckle under just to get through the seminary, and my concern is that if they do it for three or four years in the seminary, they won't stop when they get out, because they will have to do it then, too."
Like Michael Rose, Shepherd thinks the vocations crisis has been manufactured by dissidents and doesn't look for it to get better any time soon. "I expect more of the same nonsense that has been going on," he said. "It's a self-inflicted wound, because the process of choosing is, at best, flawed, if not outright disingenuous. To have someone like Monsignor Wilbur Davis as vocations director is a total ... not a shot in the foot, but a shot in the head. Any even half-orthodox candidate would not want to deal with a man like Davis. He has an agenda, and it's obvious when you talk to him. He gives the impression that he doesn't want men who know their faith; he wants men who know how to make other people feel good. His comment about faith traditions of a parish versus catechizing is very telling. To hear something like that is enough to kill any decent orthodox man's desire to be a priest in this diocese. If I had been a lot younger, I would have jumped up, got in his face and said, 'I'm outta here!' What they need to do is replace the whole hierarchy of this diocese."
Shepherd is currently working as a technical administrative assistant for a General Electric subsidiary company that sells and leases modular buildings.