This article is about formation as an art and not a science. It is about accompaniment and discernment towards evangelical empowerment driven by the Nazareth Manifesto by mature mentors who are human-spiritual whisperers of their charges. I was beginning to get paranoid at the number of times the word “rotten” or “broken” pops into my head in reference to the priestly formation system until my friend Elizabeth Mphande told me in an email, “It’s really sad and pathetic. It’s like the whole system is rotten and some guys are just out there to do a job to get easy money from parishioners. Taking its point of departure from Pope Francis’ concern about initial formation for the priesthood, I suggest that in the light of the Ratio Fundamentalis, formation must operate on the principle of “small is beautiful” by avoiding mass manufacture of priests. The focus of such formation needs to be accompaniment and discernment. Failure to do this, we risk in the words of Pope Francis, churning out little monsters in circumstances that are akin to policing rather transformative formation. Pope Francis never defined what he meant by “little monsters” but I opine that it has to do with the style of leadership. Little or big monsters would be the equivalent of an ecclesiastical Donald Trump. These monsters eventually grow into big monsters as bishops, archbishops and cardinals with a heart of stone instead of a heart of flesh whose default exercise of authority is hard power rather than soft power. As the Pope says, formation and we might add episcopal oversight “is a work of art, not policing” [è un’opera artigianale, non poliziesca].
Formation of Catholic Priests as Artisanal and not Policing
Pope Francis and the Formation of Catholic Priests for the 21st Century
By Dr Tarcisius Mukuka
If the seminary is too large, it must be divided into communities with formators capable of truly accompanying people. Dialogue must be serious, fearless, and sincere. And we must consider that the language of young people in formation today is different from that of those who preceded them: we are living in a changed epoch. Formation is an artisanal job, non-policing [ Se il seminario è troppo grande, bisogna dividerlo in comunità con formatori capaci di seguire davvero le persone. Il dialogo deve essere serio, senza paura, sincero. E bisogna considerare che il linguaggio dei giovani in formazione oggi è diverso da quello di chi li ha preceduti: viviamo un cambiamento d’epoca. La formazione è un’opera artigianale, non poliziesca ].1
1. Introduction
The title of this article is a double-edged sword. As formation is artisanal, it is open to creativity by both providers and beneficiaries. The sky is literally the limit of what it can achieve, especially when those who accompany seminarians or any other candidates in formation, are mature and integrated formators. That is the upside. The Oxford Dictionary defines artisanal as “relating to or characteristic of an artisan, of a product, especially food or drink, made in a traditional or non-mechanised way.” That is the way I liked my daily ice-cream in Rome. That is how I like my priests to be made — home-made. The formator is an artisan who is skilled in the art of human-spiritual whispering. He is like the traditional healer we call shing’anga 2 in Zambia. You know he or she is good even though they have not been to medical school. The human-spiritual whisperer is good even though he has not been to graduate school. That is the upside and main point of this article. The downside is that sometimes providers can get it horribly wrong when formators are factory mass manufacturers as we did in May 1985 when an entire cohort of 67 seminarians went on strike and were subsequently all fired in a draconian display of hard power (Mukuka 2020 forthcoming)3 in an ecclesiastical version of product recall. As in 1985, when the formators are the wrong fit, this is a recipe for disaster. You have to admit that some so-called formators are not up to the task. Some of them are in the seminary as the equivalent of being sent to the naughty corner or to Siberia. Word does get around. A priest is sent to the seminary because either he can’t stand his bishop or vice versa or he is unsuitable for the parish so that ironically, he can go and prepare those to take over from him. I for one did not think I was mature enough to accompany others. The idea of spending 24 hours letting students walk in my moccasins and I, in theirs, was not particularly attractive to me. I preferred an arrangement where non-academic formators, especially prepared for the task, to do the job and academic lecturers parachuted in from the outside for the purpose while also teaching at other tertiary institutions so as to support themselves.
This article takes a leaf from Pope Francis’ concern about initial formation for the priesthood, evidenced at the head of this article and suggests in the light of the Ratio Fundamentalis (2016) that formators avoid mass manufacture but focus on “small is beautiful” accompaniment and discernment, seeing formation as un’opera artigianale [an artisanal job]. The adjective artigianale was one of the earliest I learnt when I arrived in Rome. I first came across it for the first at an Ice- cream bar on Via delle Fornaci, 00165 Roma. I asked the young lady behind the counter what made it special, she told me “È gelato artigianale [It is home-made ice-cream]. The priest of the 21st century ought to be artigianale [home-made] and not factory-made. Failure to do this, risks, in the words of the Pontiff, breeding piccoli mostri [little monsters] in circumstances that are akin to policing [ poliziesca ] or correctional services rather than emancipative and transformative Gospel-led formation. As the Pope says, formation “is a work of art, not policing” [ è un’opera artigianale, non poliziesca ],4 echoed by Sister Maryasia Weber (2018). This article is something of a mixed bag. Although broken, the system of formation still manages to produce masterpieces every now and again but one feels that like a student’s end of term evaluation, “the system could do better.”
This article is about formation as an art, towards evangelical empowerment driven by the Nazareth Manifesto through accompaniment and discernment by mature mentors who are human-spiritual whisperers of their charges. I was beginning to get paranoid at the number of times the word “rotten” or “broken” pops into my head in reference to the priestly formation system until my friend Elizabeth Mphande told me in an email, “It’s really sad and pathetic. It’s like the whole system is rotten and some guys are just out there to do a job to get easy money from parishioners. Some of these guys are practically full-time married men who just come and say Mass from time to time” (email, 1 July 2020). Marie Ngandwe, not her real name, echoed a similar frustration when she wrote to me.
It’s very unfortunate that some of our priests who have children abandon them in preference to their priestly vocation. Some of our priests have made women pregnant and told them to abort and some die along the way. It’s so sad that this has caused many deaths while some are still serving as priests. I witnessed one occasion where a priest told his girlfriend to abort for fear the child would resemble him. This poor woman was even infected with HIV / AIDS and later on died. Our priests are sexually active but they hide themselves behind their Roman collars. God knows that I’m not judging them but that is the truth. Most religious sisters become pregnant, they abort and the priests are the instigators (email, 1 January 2020).
Presumably, the priests in question went through a priestly formation that prides itself in forming them to preach an “evangelium vitae” [Gospel of life], both in word and deed, in which abortion is not only sinful but attracts automatic excommunication [ latae sententiae ]. As Catholic priests trained in the era of John Paul II, they also studied the theology of the body and sexual ethics in which life begins at the moment of conception. No priesthood is worth its name in whatever currency, if it is achieved and maintained at the expense of aborted foetuses. It is, as the King James Bible puts it, “thy brother’s [or sister’s] blood crieth unto me from the ground” (Gen 4.10 KJV). I couldn’t care less how divided scientists and ethicists are on when life begins, whether it is at implantation of the fertilised ovum in the uterus or even when ensoulment takes place. Human life cannot be reduced to an equation or scientific hypothesis. The Catholic priest ought to be in the forefront of a Gospel of life from womb to tomb. When in doubt, it is better to err on the side of an abundance of caution.
2. Formators as Human-Spiritual Whisperers
Before I develop the concept of the formator as a human-spiritual whisperer, I want to begin with what a formator should not be. This profile must be taken alongside one that I develop below in the section “Little Monsters Look Like This.” The formator must not be a careerist and clericalist. The same goes for his bishop who appoints him to his ministry. Addressing bishops at St Peter’s Square on 5 November 2014 during a Wednesday General Audience, Pope Francis did not mince his words, words particularly pertinent to formators as human-spiritual whisperers concerning clericalism. He categorised clericalism as a negative pathway to sterile authoritarian and ecclesiastical careerism, privilege, entitlement and power and hard power for that matter, if I may add, as I have argued elsewhere (Mukuka 2020).5 “It’s sad when you see a man who seeks this office and who does so much to get there and when he makes it, he doesn’t serve, but struts like a peacock, living only for his own vanity,”6 the Pope said in his usual colourful language.
Most of what I am hoping to say about priestly formation and the type of Church needed to get there I found very well summarised in an abstract for a Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies article, “The Catholic Church in need of de-clericalisation and moral doctrinal agency: Towards an ethically accountable hierarchical leadership” by Jennifer Slater which I am going to cite here at length. My reason for citing it is to agree with it that clericalism is the bête noire of the Catholic Church.
Under normal circumstances the Church would function as an agent of change and transformation, but this article focuses on the Church herself that needs radical change if she is to remain relevant in mission and ministry in this current era. Clericalism and the centralisation of hierarchical control can be identified as the root causes of institutional pathology and weakening collegiality. To address clericalism may require the adjustment of seminary training, as in the current system seminarians are nurtured in a sense of separateness, promoting male ego and feed gender exclusivity and doctrinal self-righteousness. While the seminary was once an instrument of reform in the Catholic Church, established to counter problems such as clerical concubinage and illiteracy, but now it is no longer suitable as it has become the forum that breeds other problems. Priority attention should be paid to purge the Church of rampant clericalism, discriminatory scapegoating of gay persons, marginalisation of free thinkers, exclusion of women priests, the perceived moral laxity of family life issues and reception of communion by divorced Catholics without the benefits of annulment. Discrediting the personal authority of the pope is hardly an enlightened option. What ought to be transformed is the centralisation of control and allowing increased localised dominion whereby crises such as sexual abuse scandals could be addressed and solved more speedily and liberally, and limit the need to go to the top for solutions. To wait for centralised, hierarchal structures to deal with urgent issues is not desirable, as speedy accountability is needed to address issues that hurt the Church in its entirety.7
I could not have put it better myself but soon after the abstract, Jennifer Slater commits a couple of errors of fact and attribution in her article. She quotes Carol Glatz, Catholic News Service Rome correspondent as, “in his speech, ‘Bishops must be servants, not vain careerists after power, honour.’” Carol Glatz is actually a she and the speech title is the title of her article for the National Catholic Reporter. Jennifer Slater then proceeds to quote Carol Glatz but what she gives is a short medley from Pope Francis’ speech to the bishops at a Wednesday General audience of 5 November 2014. So, rather than repeat her quotation medley, I am going to quote directly from the Pope’s address in Italian followed by my translation. I give this lengthy quotation to underscore Pope Francis’ opposition to careerism and clericalism in the Catholic Church — the two cardinal sins, the two bêtes noires, to be avoided by the formator as a human-spiritual whisperer.
Comprendiamo, quindi, che non si tratta di una posizione di prestigio, di una carica onorifica. L’episcopato non è un’onorificenza, è un servizio. Gesù l’ha voluto così. Non dev’esserci posto nella Chiesa per la mentalità mondana. La mentalità mondana dice: “Quest’uomo ha fatto la carriera ecclesiastica, è diventato vescovo”. No, no, nella Chiesa non deve esserci posto per questa mentalità. L’episcopato è un servizio, non un’onorificenza per vantarsi. Essere Vescovi vuol dire tenere sempre davanti agli occhi l’esempio di Gesù che, come Buon Pastore, è venuto non per essere servito, ma per servire (cfr Mt 20,28; Mc 10,45) e per dare la sua vita per le sue pecore (cfr Gv 10,11). I santi Vescovi – e sono tanti nella storia della Chiesa, tanti vescovi santi – ci mostrano che questo ministero non si cerca, non si chiede, non si compra, ma si accoglie in obbedienza, non per elevarsi, ma per abbassarsi, come Gesù che «umiliò se stesso, facendosi obbediente fino alla morte e a una morte di croce» (Fil 2,8). E’ triste quando si vede un uomo che cerca questo ufficio e che fa tante cose per arrivare là e quando arriva là non serve, si pavoneggia, vive soltanto per la sua vanità [We must understand therefore, that this [the episcopacy] is not a prestigious position, an honorific position. The episcopate is not an honour, it is a service. Jesus wanted it so. There must be no place in the Church for the worldly mentality. The worldly mentality says: “This man has achieved this ecclesiastical career; he has become bishop.” No, no, there must be no place in the Church for this mentality. The episcopate is a service, not an honour for bragging rights. Being Bishops means always keeping in front of your eyes the example of Jesus who, as Good Shepherd, came not to be served, but to serve (cf Mt 20,28; Mk 10,45) and to give his life for his sheep (cf. Jn 10,11). The holy bishops — and there are many in the history of the Church, many holy bishops — show us that this ministry is not sought, asked, or bought, but welcomed in obedience, not to elevate oneself, but to lower oneself, like Jesus who “humbled himself, making himself obedient until death and death on the cross” (Phil 2,8). It is sad when you see a man looking for this office and doing many things to get there and when he gets there, he doesn’t serve but struts his stuff like a peacock, living only for his own vanity].8
Perhaps it is worth our while to cite the text of Titus 1.5‒9, which Pope Francis used in his 5 November 2014 Wednesday General audience address to the bishops. If it was up to me to look for qualities of human-spiritual whisperers, and indeed of bishops in general, that is where I would direct anyone interested.
The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders [πρεσβυτέρους] in every town, as I directed you. 6 An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. 7 Since an overseer [ἐπίσκοπον] manages God’s household, he must be blameless — not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. 8 Rather, he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. 9 He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage [παρακαλεῖν] others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it (Titus 1.5‒9 NIV).
This was either ironic or tongue in cheek of the Pope to choose to address celibate bishops by choosing a text that enjoins them to be faithful to their wives, “An elder must be blameless, faithful to his wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient” (Titus 1.6). Purely on that score, none of the episcopal and sacerdotal cassocks surrounding him qualified. Perhaps this was an unintended telegraph about the viri probati we have heard so much about but ultimately Pope Francis failed to deliver in Querida Amazonia. But I am grateful to Jennifer Slater for her article and I now want to underscore the principal areas of agreement with her and their relevance to the formator as human-spiritual whisperer.
The seminary human-spiritual whisperer must not be a clericalist. The problem with the clericalist is that he is not in it for the sake of the Gospel. St Paul’s advice cited by Pope Francis to the bishops above must be his or her guide but is not. “He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage [παρακαλεῖν] others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it” (Titus 1.9 NIV). He does not sound like the 26-year-old newly ordained arrogante I was when I was appointed for the task. If he or she is a clericalist, they will model and encourage “separateness, promoting male-ego and feed gender exclusivity and doctrinal self-righteousness” (Slater 2019), especially in all-male formation team. I am particularly eager to underscore, unlike the Vatican deep state, that Pope Francis is not part of the problem but part of the solution to formation as human-spiritual whispering. Clearly, as we shall see shortly, George Weigel begs to differ. But as Jennifer Slater points out, “Discrediting the personal authority of the Pope is hardly an enlightened option. What ought to be transformed is the centralisation of control and allowing increased localised dominion whereby crises such as sexual abuse scandals could be addressed and solved more speedily and liberally, and limit the need to go to the top for solutions” (Slater 2019) as did both John Paul II and Benedict XVI. George Weigel is by all accounts a John Paul II Papist. He is the author of Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999). It is a pity Jennifer Slater uses a word that is antithetical to the spirit of servant leadership, “dominion.”
During the pontificates of John Paul II (1978‒2005) and Benedict XVI (2005‒2013), the Catholic Church suffered from precisely that spirit of dominion in which centralisation and hard power were used in an anal-retentive manner. Solving the many problems that plague the Catholic Church requires first, “de-patriarchalisation” of the Church and devolution of power from the apex of the pyramid to the base or alternatively just inverting the whole pyramid. This would require formators who are human-spiritual whisperers of this inverted pyramid, formators who are schooled in the use of Gospel-like soft power and servant leadership. On de-patriarchalisation of the Church as a way to human-spiritual whispering in the Church, even without reading George Weigel’s The Next Pope (2020), my view is that this book is unlikely to contribute to human-spiritual whispering. I am basing my prejudice on John J. Strynkowski’s review of the book which I find persuasive.9 And here is why I am not recommending The Next Pope.
In his new book The Next Pope, George Weigel seeks to create a profile of the next pope. The profile he establishes can be easily summarised: “not Pope Francis.” The book is a hardly subtle critique of the present bishop of Rome. In a brief 133 pages I counted at least 62 times when he used the verb “must” in regard to what the next pope should do (Ibid).
A quick perusal of the table of contents convinces me that George Weigel’s next Pope is preferably a John Paul II or his clone, Benedict XVI. Both Popes were associated with the new Evangelisation and an authoritarian, patriarchal view of the Church which was part of the problem in the first place. Arguably, the birthplace of the new evangelisation is not even Rome but Nowa Huta near Krakow, where Karol Wojtyla grew up. During his first apostolic pilgrimage to Poland, during Holy Mass at the shrine of the Holy Cross on 9 June 1979, John Paul II announced the birth of the new evangelisation.
The new wooden Cross was raised not far from here at the very time we were celebrating the Millennium. With it we were given a sign that on the threshold of the new millennium, in these new times, these new conditions of life, the Gospel is again being proclaimed. A new evangelization has begun, as if it were a new proclamation, even if in reality it is the same as ever. The Cross stands high over the revolving world (John Paul II 1979: par 1 — italics in the original).
The term “new evangelisation” was subsequently made popular by Pope John Paul II who used it during an address to the Latin American bishops in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on 9 May 9 1983. He declared that the fifth centenary of the first evangelisation of the Americas (1492–1992) should mark the beginning of a new era of evangelization. Pope John Paul II then expounded on the idea later, in his encyclical, Redemptoris Missio, which became the Magna Carta of the new evangelisation. He did the same in his apostolic letter, Tertio Millennio Adveniente, issued for the Great Jubilee of the year 2000 and his apostolic exhortation, Novo Millennio Ineunte. In 2010, Pope John Paul II’s protégé, Benedict XVI established the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization. When he called for the Year of Faith (2012‒2013) on the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, he opened it with a general assembly of the Synod of Bishops on the new evangelization for the transmission of the Christian faith.10
The purpose of the above short excursus is to give context to George Weigel’s the Next Pope but I remain personally unpersuaded that a John Paul II or Benedict XVI redivivus as the next Pope is the tonic the Church of the future needs. Their Church was too rear-guard for the ecclesial and societal challenges of the twenty-first century. I agree with Michael Sean Winters who opines that “George Weigel’s latest book, The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission, is a thin one at only 141 pages. But it is thin, too, in the sense that what it communicates is either a repeat of Weigel’s earlier themes or a recantation of ideas — some of which are true but banal and others are misleading and given to caricature. The only real novelty is the degree to which he casts aspersions on the current Pope with catty insinuations without sufficient courage to say plainly where he thinks Pope Francis has erred.”11 Michael Sean Winters rightly criticises “the chapter on the fullness of the Catholic faith” in which George Weigel “pens a series of assertions about what the new Pope needs to do that are really passive-aggressive attacks on Francis” and the blather about “the heroic priesthood” which “is part and parcel of the clerical culture that must be uprooted, not indulged.”12 I wish George Weigel would balance this with some serious apologia for the “heroic laity” who are often the heroes of the faith and I have seen a good few in my lifetime. I think his “heroic priesthood” is often synonymous with a “pampered priesthood.” A lay-centred Church is the way forward and what the next Pope should be about.
In view of the above, Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan of New York, who at 70, could be casting his ballot at the next conclave has committed a faux pas by sending copies of the Next Pope to all the cardinals.13 Bang out of order if you ask me. What was he thinking? I am now putting him on my list of the Vatican deep state who are hell-bent on thwarting Bergoglian reforms. In case you think I am unfair to George Weigel, here he is in his own words on why he wrote the Next Pope followed by a justification of his long-time pal and theological stablemate, Timothy Dolan endorsing the book as it was sent to the cardinals.
Some Catholics, often found in the moribund local Churches of western Europe, claim that the Council’s “spirit” has never been implemented (although the Catholic Lite implementation they propose seems more akin to liberal Protestantism than Catholicism). Other voices claim that the Council was a terrible mistake and that its teaching should be quietly forgotten, consigned to the dustbin of history. In the Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (just published by Ignatius Press), I suggest that some clarifying papal interventions are needed to address these confusions.
Thus, the next pope ought to insist that the Catholic Church does not do rupture, reinvention, or “paradigm shifts.” Why? Because Jesus Christ — “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13.8) — is always the centre of the Church. That conviction is the beginning of any authentic evangelization, any authentically Catholic development of doctrine, and any proper implementation of Vatican II.14
It’s ridiculous. I don’t recall anyone making such a silly criticism when Peter Hebblethwaite and Luigi Accattoli wrote books about the future of the papacy during the pontificate of John Paul II.15
A ‘speechless’ cardinal may be something of an ontological impossibility, and in any event these ‘speechless’ cardinals seemed to find their voices when they wanted to. As I indicated previously, Cardinal Dolan didn’t send them my book; Ignatius Press sent them my book and the cardinal kindly provided a cover letter thanking Ignatius Press for making the book available to the College of Cardinals. So, if anyone was struck ‘speechless’ by Cardinal Dolan ‘sending’ them a book, they ought to look again at his letter and read it accurately this time.16
Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s “letter” was a one-liner, “I am grateful to Ignatius Press for making this important reflection on the future of the Church available to the College of Cardinals.”17 I think “Catholic Lite” is George Weigel’s pot-shot at Francis. My only problem with his passive-aggressive anti-Francis narrative is the underlying assumption that the issue is whether Vatican II has been implemented or not and the best hope for implementing Vatican II is a John Paul II or a Benedict XVI redivivus as mentioned above. I am just surprised that 55 years after the end of Vatican II, George Weigel should still be harping on about Vatican II. Whether Vatican II has been implemented or not, I think it is time we started talking about Vatican III and from where I am sitting, Pope Francis is our best bet for pulling that cat out of the bag. But I have a feeling we may be waiting until the cows come home, to conflate feline and bovine metaphors. In the meantime, clericalism continues to rule the roost.
Many seminarians come looking for the trappings of George Weigel’s “heroic priesthood” as an elite and clerical career that is better than the life they have left behind in their rural hinterlands. As Swithan Kalobwe put it in his powerful testimony, “In rural Zambia, Catholic missionaries, who were ordinarily white fathers both in race and missionary order, lived a life notably better than the majority of the local population. That in itself, though unintended, was inspiring to many young Catholics, like myself, to admire the priesthood. I cannot tell whether I was a victim of that, but in any case, I got a lot of interest in the priesthood and subsequently started taking steps into priestly formation.”18 I can tell. Most of us begin with admiring the trappings that include the cassock, the car, to be fair also sometimes the holiness of life but this admiration is a mixed bag. For some, it is the socio-economic package that predominates and for others it is the obsequiousness with which the priest is worshipped. The irony for the white missionary is that the life we admired of him was by comparison to where he was coming from nothing short of pre-industrial and rustic. A good human-spiritual whisperer will help to refine that initial glass-eyed view of the priest, principally through the example of his own simple life. Ironically, as a formator, although I did not evince affluence, a T shirt I used to wear promoting a better life for the subaltern of the Copperbelt, became a fashion statement for the priesthood as a better life to aspire to, however that better life was understood.
3. The Metaphor of a Formator as a Human-Spiritual Whisperer
The metaphor of a formator as a human-spiritual whisperer may not make immediate sense if the reader is not familiar with the horse whisperer metaphor. The horse whisperer is a famous 1998 American drama film directed by and starring Robert Redford, one of my favourite American actors. I first saw him on the big screen in Out of Africa — a 1985 American epic romantic drama film directed and produced by Sydney Pollack, and starring Robert Redford19 and Meryl Streep — my first onscreen girlfriend I first met in Kramer vs. Kramer, a 1979 American legal drama film written and directed by Robert Benton, based on Avery Corman’s 1977 novel of the same name starring Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep. Out of Africa is based loosely on the 1937 autobiographical book Out of Africa written by Isak Dinesen, the pseudonym of Danish author Karen Blixen, with additional material from Isak Dinesen’s 1960 book Shadows on the Grass and other sources. But back to the horse whisperer, the book was based on the 1995 novel the Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans. In the movie, Robert Redford plays the title role of the Horse Whisperer in which he is presented as a talented trainer with a remarkable gift for understanding horses. This is the clue to our metaphorical analogy of the formator as a human -spiritual whisperer. His or her job is to train but this profession is almost an inborn charism for connecting and understanding other human beings. In the movie the Horse Whisperer, Robert Redford is hired to help an injured teenager, played by one of my big screen girlfriends, Scarlett Johansson and her horse back to health following a tragic accident. The candidate who comes to the seminary is a bit like an injured horse being nursed back to full health. The formator accompanying the candidate needs special skills. Every candidate carries a baggage of hurt and dysfunction that need healing before the candidate is able to perform optimally. I made this point to an ex-seminarian who was contemplating returning to the seminary after the bishop had declared doubts about his suitability and he was not amused. Two things worried me: he had not done anything with his life in four years and listening to him convinced me he had issues including alcoholism which needed addressing. I was afraid he may be seeing the priesthood as an easier option. The formator needs to be a talented trainer with a remarkable gift for understanding human beings and sniffing out problem cases such as my friend. I fear no such atmosphere exists. Instead candidates are encouraged to pretend while investing in a proverbial chastity belt which is jettisoned the same day they are ordained and live out their days “from bed linen to Altar linen,” usually not alone in the case of the former.
If the truth be told, although I like to describe my 7-year career in the seminary as a formator, I was more an academic lecturer and if the testimonies of my former students are to be believed, I was not half as bad. But formation was a head-trip for me. I loved living in my head and enthusing others to do the same more than being a human-spiritual whisperer. Being a true formator or a human-spiritual whisperer is a different ball game. It requires first and foremost, patience to start scratching the surface and get to the real gem. Many seminarians, due to fear, do not allow themselves to be refined. For that you need the fire and ironically for Mpima, that was the motto, ignem mittere in terram [to cast fire upon the earth]. Not just upon the earth, but deep into the recesses of the would-be priest. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a whisperer is “a person skilled in taming or training a specified kind of animal, typically using body language and gentle vocal encouragement rather than physical contact” like Robert Redford in the Horse Whisperer. The formator is a human-spiritual whisperer and I am not so sure I was able to rise to such dizzy heights. Of the dozen or so fellow-formators I worked with over the 7-year period, I can mention only one who struck me as a potential or actual human-spiritual whisperer, a gentle American by the name of John Jack O’Leary from Spokane, Washington, a man ironically with the experience of actual horses when he was growing up. He was as down to earth as the rural earth of Mpima ward where our seminary was situated. And sometimes he would walk bare foot, literally, to be down to earth. I borrow the idea of a human-spiritual whisperer from another American, Steven Keyl who explains the concept as follows.
Dog and horse whisperers alike are experts. For the rest of us, the animals we spend the most time with are other people. So, to maximize our effectiveness with others it makes sense to cultivate the same skills as the animal whisperers — to become in the truest sense, a “Human Whisperer.”20
[...]
1 Antonio Spadaro, 4 January 2014, “‘ Svegliate Il Mondo !’ Colloquio di Papa Francesco con i Superiori Generali,” La Civiltà Cattolica 1:3‒17, https://www.laciviltacattolica.it/articolo/svegliate-il-mondo-colloquio-di-papa-francesco-con-i-superiori-generali/ (Accessed on 05.06.2020)
2 As Clive Dillone-Malone explains, “The general term ‘ shing’anga ’ covers a wide range of types of healers which includes the katundula, the kabuka and the mucapi. Hence, shing’anga in itself and without any further qualification refers to the category of ‘healer’ rather than to any particular form of healer. It includes the ability to divine the cause of the ill ness in question as well as to prescribe the appropriate kind of remedial treatment, whether herbal or otherwise (Dillon-Malone 1987: 14).
3 Tarcisius Mukuka (2020), The Catholic Church, Use of Hard Power and the Appointment of Bishops: The Case of a Fictitious but Alas all too Familiar Scenario in Zambezia, Munich: GRIN Verlag
4 Ibid
5 Tarcisius Mukuka (2020), “Anatomy of an Episcopal Dressing down and Clericalism: A Prince of the Catholic Church and an Ecclesial Irritant,” Munich: GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/948402
6 Carol Glatz, 5 November 2014, “Pope: Bishops must be servants, not vain careerists after power, honour,” National Catholic Reporter, https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/francis-chronicles/pope-bishops-must-be-servants-not-vain-careerists-after-power-honor (Accessed on 12.07.2020)
7 Jennifer Slater (2019), “The Catholic Church in need of de-clericalisation and moral doctrinal agency: Towards an ethically accountable hierarchical leadership,” HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies 75(4), https://hts.org.za/index.php/hts/article/view/5446/14118 (Accessed on 12.07.2020)
8 Papa Francesco (5 November 2014), “Udienza Generale, Piazza San Pietro, Mercoledì, 5 novembre 2014,” http://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/it/audiences/2014/documents/papafrancesco_20141105_udienza-generale.html (Accessed on 22.11.2020)
9 John J. Strynkowski, 15 July 2020, “George Weigel imagines the next Pope,” America the Jesuit Review, https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2020/07/15/george-weigel-imagines-next-pope (Accessed on 16.07.2020)
10 Ave Maria Press (2012), “What is the New Evangelization?” https://www.avemariapress.com/yearoffaith/what-is-the-new-evangelization/ (Accessed on 16.07.2020)
11 Michael Sean Winters, 6 July 2020, “Weigel’s ‘The Next Pope’ has a crimped, Americanist vision of papacy,” National Catholic Reporter, https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/weigels-next-pope-has-crimped-americanist-vision-papacy (Accessed on 16.07.2020)
12 Ibid
13 Joshua J. McElwee, 14 July 2020, “Exclusive: Dolan sends book on ‘The Next Pope’ to cardinals around the world,” The National Catholic Reporter, https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/exclusive-dolan-sends-book-next-pope-cardinals-around-world (Accessed on 16.07.2020)
14 George Weigel, 15 July 2020, “The Next Pope and Vatican II,” First Things, https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/07/the-next-pope-and-vatican-ii (Accessed on 16.07.2020)
15 JD Flynn, 14 July 2020, “Criticism of Cardinal Dolan letter ‘silly,’ Weigel publisher says,” https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/criticism-of-cardinal-dolan-letter-silly-george-weigel-publisher-says-54781 (Accessed on 17.07.2020)
16 Ibid
17 Ibid
18 Swithan Kalobwe, 14 July 2024 email to me reflecting on the 1985 seminary boycott as someone who was in the eye of a very Catholic storm, to use the title of my forthcoming book.
19 Image credit: http://google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=The+Horse+Whisperer (Accessed on 22.11.2020)
20 Steven Keyl (2017), “The Human Whisperer,” https://www.stevenkeyl.com/the-human-whisperer/what-is-a-human-whisperer/ (Accessed on 01.07.2020)
- Arbeit zitieren
- Dr Tarcisius Mukuka (Autor:in), 2020, Formation of Catholic Priests as Artisanal and not Policing, München, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/962848
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