Men to study at Belmont Abbey College
BELMONT — The Diocese of Charlotte is establishing a college seminary in response to growing interest in priestly vocations.
The St. Joseph College Seminary will be what the Church calls a “minor” seminary, as its focus is undergraduate men considering the priesthood, one step before enrolling in a “major” seminary where they receive more specific priestly formation.
It will give these men the opportunity to live closer to home, continue their college studies while in community together, and interact regularly with diocesan vocations staff.
On March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, Bishop Peter J. Jugis will formally announce the creation of the college seminary during the Bishop’s Lenten Youth Pilgrimage at Belmont Abbey College.
Starting this fall, the college seminary will be temporarily located on the campus of St. Ann Church in Charlotte, but there are plans to build a permanent home on or near the campus of Belmont Abbey College.
“I think the faithful of the diocese will be greatly encouraged to know that as we are growing as a diocese the Lord is answering their prayers and bringing forth vocations,” Bishop Jugis said Tuesday.
In an earlier letter to priests, Bishop Jugis noted that the plan “for our college seminarians would have many advantages. It would allow men considering a priestly vocation to study closer to their home state of North Carolina and give them the opportunity of pastoral formation in the setting for which they are preparing to serve.”
Bishop Jugis, a native of the Charlotte diocese, played an active role in selecting the name “St. Joseph College Seminary.” Placed under the patronage of St. Joseph, foster father of Our Lord, the name also reflects the heritage of the diocese, which was first shepherded by Bishop Michael Joseph Begley when it was carved out of the Diocese of Raleigh in 1972.
FORMATION OF VIRTUE
Already, nine men are expected to enter the college seminary for the 2016-’17 academic year, attending classes at Belmont Abbey College while living temporarily in the former St. Joseph Monastery on the St. Ann campus. The building was the home of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, who moved to Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Ala., last November.
Enrolled in the diocese’s seminarian program, the men will work toward an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the top-ranked Benedictine college in Belmont. While attending classes, they will live in community, apart from the rest of the student body, and will follow a “rule of life” appropriate for this level of seminary, including daily Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, the rosary, spiritual direction and conferences.
Father Matthew Kauth, chaplain of Charlotte Catholic High School and an instructor at Belmont Abbey College, will be the rector of the college seminary, living in community with the men.
The college seminary is designed as a place for the human, spiritual and pastoral formation of local, college-aged men, Father Kauth said.
“We’re seeing a lot more college-aged men desiring to enter into formation for the priesthood – specifically, those who are in high school looking to enter into a college situation,” he said.
Unlike a major or graduate seminary in which men study theology (earning a master’s degree) and receive more specific pastoral formation for the priesthood, Father Kauth noted, college seminary is a time to equip the men with the undergraduate philosophy studies necessary before going to a major seminary. The program will also focus on the formation of the virtues necessary for a life of priestly service, he said.
The college seminary will also enable the men to be part of a lively Catholic college environment and engage with other young adults, as well as with the Benedictine monks of Belmont Abbey, he said. In turn, the men will offer a vibrant Catholic witness that could inspire others at Belmont Abbey College and elsewhere to consider a religious vocation.
He also hopes that the men’s year-round presence would enable them to be more active in parishes and assist at major diocesan events such as the annual Eucharistic Congress.
FOLLOWING GOD’S CALL
One of the nine men who hopes to be in the inaugural class for the St. Joseph College Seminary is Aaron Huber of Cruso (near Asheville), a sophomore at Belmont Abbey College.
“I am very interested in the new college seminary at Belmont Abbey because when I look back on all the choices I have made, in the trust that God will lead me to Himself, I realize that everything I have done or have not done has led me to be open to the priesthood and then to desire it,” Huber said.
Being able to continue studying at Belmont Abbey College while more intensely discerning God’s will for his life is important to him, he added.
“If I am blessed with the privilege of attending this fall, my hope is that it will reveal itself to be a place that will form me and my future brothers into the virtuous and holy man that is necessary to become a virtuous and holy priest,” he said.
PLANS FOR A PERMANENT HOME
The diocese hopes to invest in a permanent home for the St. Joseph College Seminary on or near the Belmont Abbey campus. The first phase of the project includes procuring the land and constructing a building of approximately 18,000 square feet to house at least 20 men. The building will also include a chapel and administrative and study areas.
Diocesan officials have been working with Michael G. Imber Architects of San Antonio, Texas, to design an American Gothic style building to mirror the architecture of Belmont Abbey College. Imber recently won a religious architecture award from Faith & Form for his design of the college seminary.
The cost for the first phase of the project is estimated at $7.5 million – comprised of $5 million for the building, $1 million for the site development, and $1.5 million for furnishings, equipment, design-related services and other project costs.
Donors from across the country have already committed more than $4 million, diocesan officials said.
Donor support for the college seminary has been enthusiastic, they noted, as word of the plan has spread through the Catholic community both locally and nationally.
Retired Army Lt. Col. Joseph Spinetto, a member of St. Bernadette Parish in Linville, is one of the supporters of the college seminary and the diocese’s seminarian program.
“We often refer to the Church as the Body of Christ with all of us as members of the Body,” Spinetto said. “If I look at the ‘members,’ I see every possible occupation and vocation, but there is only one that is truly focused on helping me to stay on the path to heaven: the priesthood.”
“Good priests help us stay on the path and focus on the reason we are here,” said Spinetto, who has eight children and 13 grandchildren. “I want more good priests, and the seminary provides a cornerstone to make that happen.”
Billie Mobley, founder and president of the Te Deum Foundation, is also enthused about the creation of the college seminary, which she sees as God’s handiwork in the potential creation of a major seminary on land her foundation bought near Shelby in 2012.
“We’re very excited about the college seminary!” Mobley said. “These are new beginnings. These are exciting times. God has blessed our diocese with such a wonderful project.”
The Te Deum Foundation contributes to the spiritual and material support of seminarians in the Charlotte diocese. While the foundation is not directly involved with funding or developing the college seminary, Mobley said she does see it fitting in with the larger goal of possibly building a major seminary here at some point in the future.
GROWING VOCATIONS
The St. Joseph College Seminary reflects a renewed effort by U.S. bishops to nurture religious vocations at an earlier age, with the aim of reversing a decades-long decline in the number of ordinations. The call to religious life is like the planting of a seed, vocations leaders say, but that seed must be cultivated and given space and nourishment to grow.
According to a 2014 survey by the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, 53 percent of respondents said they first considered a religious vocation in their teenage years, another 19 percent in their early 20s. Furthermore, CARA has found that Catholic college environments foster greater interest in religious vocations, as students learn from the examples of the priests, brothers or sisters serving there.
Minor seminaries, which practically disappeared in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, are sprouting up again to meet this need for young men in high school and college.
The St. Joseph College Seminary would be among just a few of its kind in the Southeast, besides Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington, D.C., St. Joseph Seminary College in Louisiana, and St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami.
The new college seminary is part of Bishop Jugis’ persistent efforts to foster interest in religious vocations, particularly as the Catholic population in the diocese has skyrocketed to an estimated 400,000 from the 35,000 who were here when the diocese was established in 1972.
Most recently, Bishop Jugis named Father Jason Barone as vocations promoter for the diocese, widening the vocation ministry under the leadership of the Director of Vocations, Father Christopher Gober. Father Barone also assists Father Kauth in ministering to students at Charlotte Catholic High School.
Young men have responded to these vocation outreach efforts. The diocese’s annual Quo Vadis Days retreat for young men nearly doubled from 55 participants in 2014 to 90 last year, for example.
The diocese’s seminarian program also continues to flourish, with men currently studying for the priesthood at two major seminaries: Pontifical College Josephinum in Columbus, Ohio, or at the North American Pontifical College in Rome.
“Our growth is explosive, not just in terms of the faithful,” noted Father Kauth. “The faithful are here and they have been praying for priests, and the Lord is answering their prayers. We have so many men who are applying for the priesthood – good men, very fine men. We could never create that on our own. What we are trying to create is the place to take care of them.”
—SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter David Hains, diocesan director of communication, and Patricia L. Guilfoyle, editor, contributed.
St. Joseph College Seminary: What’s in a shield?
The shield, or coat of arms, of St. Joseph College Seminary has been carefully designed to echo the history of the local Church.
The shield depicts a lion, reflecting the role of Abbot Leo Haid, who founded Belmont Abbey Monastery in 1876. The lion also represents St. Joseph, who was from the tribe of Judah, whose symbol is also the lion.
The lion is “sejant,” or seated, in a position of vigilance – just as St. Joseph guarded over the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Child Jesus.
The lion looks across to a field of lozenges, or diamond-shaped patterns. The white lozenges symbolize purity and appear to be planted in a green field.
That field of green lozenges, also known as a semi, or seed, is an image of the seminary: seeds that are planted in fertile ground to be nurtured and grown in holy purity, under St. Joseph’s watchful eye.
The Church specifically describes a college seminary as a seed bed for priestly vocations, from which comes the word “seminary.”
The motto “Noli timere” translates as “Do not be afraid.”
These are the words that the angel spoke to St. Joseph: “Do not be afraid, Joseph, to take Mary as your wife.”
The motto conveys the prayer that the young men of the college seminary will not be afraid to give themselves totally to Jesus Christ and His Church.
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter
SALISBURY — Father Richard Farwell, a diocesan priest most recently serving in ministry outside the Diocese of Charlotte, turned himself in to Rowan County authorities Aug. 7. He was charged with allegedly taking indecent liberties with a minor. He was released on a $3,000 bond, and is represented by private counsel.
Father Farwell had been serving in ministry outside the diocese [at his request] since 2000. Specifically, he worked in ministry with Food for the Poor in Deerfield Beach, Fla.
In April, Food for the Poor fired Father Farwell following receipt of an allegation of sexual misconduct filed in Rowan County. At that time, the Diocese of Charlotte placed
Father Farwell on administrative leave. Removing a priest from active ministry is standard policy for the diocese in cases of alleged sexual misconduct.
In February 1999, the alleged victim made an allegation that Father Richard Farwell had molested him once 19 years ago when the alleged victim was between 10 and 12 years of age. Father Farwell denied the charge and the alleged victim was informed. The diocese sought to verify the claim; the alleged victim would not purse the claim stating he did not want his name publicly revealed.
In April of this year, the Diocese of Charlotte received a letter from the alleged victim’s mother stating her son was now ready to come forth. The diocese then contacted the alleged victim to verify the information was received from his mother. In accordance with diocesan policy, the incident was reported to the Rowan County Department of Social Services and also referred to a diocesan committee for review.
Father Farwell, ordained in 1981, served parishes in Charlotte, Salisbury, and had been pastor in Lincolnton prior to his leave to serve outside the diocese.
— Joann Keane, Catholic News Herald