Collared

THE MASSIVE BRICK EDIFICE of Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Newton is spectrally lit, its steeple outlined with a bluish tint by the rising moon. After Mass on a recent Sunday evening, a group of 50 high school freshmen is seated around the half-dozen tables that occupy a large meeting room in the church basement. The teenagers are dressed in jeans and corduroys, many of them sporting baseball caps and black-and-orange Newton North High School athletic gear. As part of their biweekly confirmation class, they are listening to fresh-faced Catholic seminarian Matthew Marchand give a talk titled "The Mystery of God."

Marchand, 27, a Newton native, has been plumbing that mystery at St. John's Seminary in Brighton for the past few years. A husky, bespectacled fellow, dressed this evening in a black suit, black patent-leather shoes, and Roman collar, Marchand has an innocence, even a naivete about him that would seem to make him a likely target of derision for the congregation of 14- and 15-year-olds. The beginning of his speech, a parable meant to convey God's love for humanity, falls mostly flat, and the low hum of teenage whispering rises from the perimeter of the room.

Marchand's presence in Newton illustrates a surprising persistence of faith among today's young seminarians. The numbers of priests have been dropping for decades, and, since the child-molestation scandal that roiled the Catholic Church five years ago, their social standing has plummeted, too. Still, every year, a few young men like Marchand respond to the call to serve. What has also changed inside seminaries like St. John's is how the church reaches out to prospective priests – and how it screens the candidates.

One of the things that Marchand has learned at St. John's is to be creative in preaching the faith. Asking for volunteers, Marchand selects six teens from the assembly and lines them up in a row facing the other kids. He hands them each a plastic cup, descending in size from a pint and ending with one the size of a thimble. The last three volunteers are instructed to hold their cups upside down.

Marchand points to a tall, lanky boy at the end of the row and asks him his name. When the lad replies, Marchand, speaking hypothetically, says, "James is the kind of kid who tries to lead a Christian life. He goes to confession every week. He attends Mass and takes Communion. He's nice to everyone at school, even the unpopular kids. James tries his hardest to emulate Christ."

Tearing open several plastic bags filled with chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil, Marchand pours candy into James's cup. "God's treasure is unlimited. His love is unlimited. He wants you to have it." James's cup runneth over with gold chocolate coins. Marchand works his way down the line of volunteers. "God bestows his treasure on everyone equally," he says. "But you must prepare yourself to receive it." Those who are less prepared – the smaller cups – get fewer chocolates; the last three, the "sinners" who ignore the word of God and whose cups are held upside down, get none. In the middle of the row, a pixie-faced boy with a mischievous grin attempts to deepen the well of his grace. "Just your cup, Andrew," says Marchand. "Not your pockets. Not your hat."

The teenagers' theological concentration breaks down when the candy coins are circulated, but Marchand remains focused on his mission. "I came here," he says, "to save souls."

IN 1883, ARCHBISHOP JOHN J. WILLIAMS established the Boston Ecclesiastical Seminary on a large parcel of land in Brighton, charging its faculty to prepare suitable, faithful men for the Catholic priesthood. For several decades, the school was known by the name of its patron saint, St. John the Evangelist, and in 1941 officially became St. John's Seminary. Since its inception, more than 3,000 graduates of the seminary have been ordained as priests, including three cardinals – the highest office in the church, next to the pope – and the founders of a few prominent religious societies.

The seminary also produced, between 1946 and 1999, at least 119 priests who would be accused of child molestation in an international scandal that shook the Catholic Church to its spiritual and financial foundations. One major reaction to the widespread victimization of children by priests was to rethink and retool their recruitment and "formation."A new set of guidelines issued by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops last September disallows candidates showing "any evidence of criminal sexual activity with a minor or inclination toward such activity." (The previous version, released in 1992, was less explicit on the subject.) In the aftermath of the scandals – which afflicted dioceses throughout the United States and abroad – there were personnel shake-ups in Catholic institutions around the country.

Raised up on a wooded hill across from Boston College, St. John's is a well-landscaped collection of stone buildings, each five or six stories high and trimmed out with red brick and granite. St. John's Hall – a grand turreted structure that contains the rector's office, classrooms, a refectory, two beautifully appointed chapels, various faculty offices, and a dormitory – smells of oil soap and contains a seemingly endless configuration of large, empty rooms. Dark wainscoting lines the walls, and the ceilings are fitted with ornate crown moldings; the vast hardwood floors are polished to a sheen, and room after room is furnished with plush sofas, claw-foot tables, and old-fashioned brass lamps. Not a speck of dust adheres anywhere, and the many corridors are wreathed in silence.

Even before the abuse scandal, the number of seminarians was shrinking. Beginning in the 1960s, says St. John's rector, the Rev. John Farren, "the sexual revolution, the Vietnam War, a distrust of older generations, and an enormous change in the culture of the US has greatly attenuated the need for God." Added to that is "the failure of catechesis on the part of the church – the education of people in the faith after baptism – and smaller families. Parents want grandchildren, and there's not the encouragement for vocations that existed 30 or 40 years ago." In recent years, only five to eight men have enrolled in St. John's annually, according to Farren, when more than twice that number is needed to serve the Catholic population in Boston. (As of 2005, there were 509 active diocesan priests , serving the 315,758 Catholics who attended Mass weekly across 295 parishes.)

Roman Catholic priests are either "diocesan" or "religious." Generally, diocesan priests serve a diocese, or church administrative region, and are assigned to a particular parish by a bishop – the regional overseer. Upon entering the priesthood, diocesan priests make promises to be celibate and to say daily sets of prayers for life. They also explicitly pledge obedience and respect to their bishop and his successors. Religious priests, who take a vow of poverty in addition to those taken by diocesan priests, belong to religious orders founded hundreds of years ago, such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, or Jesuits. Members of these orders often specialize in teaching or in missionary work in foreign countries. St. John's Seminary is mandated to produce diocesan priests who will serve in the parishes of the Boston Archdiocese and elsewhere.

There are 42 men at St. John's preparing for the priesthood. Where just a generation ago there were several times that number, many of them from Irish and Italian homes in Greater Boston, today's candidates come from 14 countries, including Poland, Vietnam, Uruguay, and Congo. Farren, whose term as rector ends in June, says that "to ask the question 'Where are they?' " – that is, local candidates for the priesthood – "is to ask, 'What happened to the church?' "

A large, florid-faced man with short white hair, Farren, 68, is a Dominican priest who was ordained in 1964. A Medford native, Farren was working as director of the Knights of Columbus's Catholic Information Service in New Haven three years ago when he was asked by Bishop Richard Lennon, then administrator for the Archdiocese of Boston, to serve as St. John's rector. His first year at the seminary was difficult, Farren says. In the wake of the abuse scandal, morale was low, and because of the centuries'- old rivalry between diocesan and religious-order priests, some entrenched faculty members bristled under the change in leadership. But Farren ignored the back-channel politics and continued grinding away at his mission: remaking the seminary into a place devoted to the contemplation and preaching of the Gospel, a place where priests are formed who can be trusted to guide parishes as moral authorities.

Becoming a Roman Catholic priest usually requires eight years of post-secondary study, including a bachelor's degree, preferably in philosophy, followed by four or more years of theology study at a seminary. (If a candidate already has a college degree in a non-related field, he will study the "pre-theology" curriculum at St. John's for two years, followed by four more years of theology.) Unlike most college students, seminarians' fees and tuition at St. John's are paid through an endowment. At St. John's, visitors are not allowed in the modest dormitory rooms. In addition to scheduled class and study time, seminarians spend approximately three hours in prayer each day.

Before making a formal application for entry, potential seminarians are encouraged to enter a period of "discernment," or reflection, says the Rev. Dan Hennessey, 35, vocation director for the Archdiocese of Boston since May 2005. A trim, blue-eyed man with dark hair, Hennessey – along with his two assistant directors, the Rev. Michael Harrington and the Rev. Alonzo Macias – acts as both recruiter and counselor. One of the first questions the vocation directors ask one another when presented with a candidate is "Is this guy formable?" The candidate must be able to handle, concurrently, the four major aspects of seminary life: academic, spiritual, pastoral, and human. "A priest, as a human being," explains Hennessey, "must be a bridge for people to encounter God." He must have "a sense of the call, a desire to serve, a love for the Holy Eucharist, and the desire to do God's will."

On one recent afternoon, Hennessey made arrangements to drive out to Amherst to meet with a candidate who is attending the University of Massachusetts. Although part of the reason for his field trip was to satisfy the tight schedule and budget of the candidate, Hennessey admits that that was not the only reason. "We go out and meet them now," he says. "A generation ago, we would wait for them to come in."

The application process requires producing extensive background information, writing a personal history and an essay on the priesthood, undergoing psychological testing and a physical examination, and providing testimonial letters, academic transcripts, and sacramental documentation – proof that a candidate was baptized and confirmed as a Roman Catholic. Throughout the entire process, there are numerous steps taken in hopes of weeding out unsuitable candidates, including potential abusers. There's a lengthy interview with a lay psychologist in New Hampshire and additional interviews with a priest who has a doctorate in psychology. Particular attention is paid to the candidate's sexual maturity and history, Farren says. "The initial screening is more finely articulated than it ever was."At the same time, there are one-on-one meetings with a vocation director to discuss family history, academic and work experience, spirituality, sexuality, and interpersonal relationships.

Once the application process is completed, the vocation director can decide whether to recommend a candidate for the seminary. The rector, in this case Farren, reviews the file and interviews each candidate. Additionally, the candidate meets with one of the seminary's spiritual directors and a professor. Finally, the candidate meets with the admissions board.

THE REV. STEPHEN SALOCKS'S CLASS "New Testament Introduction: The Letters of Paul" meets every Monday morning at 10:30 in a narrow, whitewashed, high-ceilinged room with hanging globes of light and varnished hardwood trim, outfitted simply with long tables and metal and wood chairs. This week, Salocks is focusing on passages from I Corinthians, and seminarian Matthew Marchand – today in the role of student, not teacher – slides into his seat just as class begins. Salocks spends a few moments writing notes on the board and then calls the group to attention by clearing his throat and pronouncing, "In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," as the handful of students in the classroom each make the sign of the cross. The men in Salocks's class fold their hands and listen attentively as their instructor reads from the Bible a lengthy passage from I Corinthians 6:12-20, outlining for his pupils the work they are responsible for in this session, while at the same time reminding them of their nature as Christian men and the restrictions on their conduct. In this passage from one of his letters, St. Paul, the sinner who in the Bible becomes a disciple of Jesus and a preacher himself, warns the newly converted Christians of Corinth that sexual immorality is not permitted. With none of the irony or distance implied by those teaching "Bible as Literature" classes at secular colleges, Salocks allows his voice to rise when he states that a man who lies with a prostitute becomes one with her body, "for it is said, the two will become one flesh." The Scripture lesson, the priest says, is that the body is "a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God," and not one's own to do with what one will.

As his voice fills the room, Salocks is standing beneath a wooden cross fixed with a silver image of the crucified Christ and before a wooden lectern carved with an encircled cross. An aff able fellow with a reassuring manner, Salocks, 56, hails from upstate New York and was ordained a diocesan priest in Boston in 1980. He has been teaching at St. John's for 20 years and is an expert in the New Testament – especially the Gospels and the letters of St. Paul. Today, Salocks may be instructing the seminarians on material they need to know for next Wednesday's examination, but this is as much a pulpit for him as a classroom. For just as St. Paul reminds the Corinthians that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, Salocks seems to be looking straight at Matthew Marchand when he quotes the Scripture, "You were bought for a price," and exhorts him to honor God with his body.

The expression on Marchand's face is a testament that, even after a candidate is admitted to St. John's, there are rigors of an academic and ascetic life for which very few seminarians are adequately prepared. In fact, perhaps the biggest challenge facing the theology professors is how little serious reading the seminarians have done before they arrive in Brighton. "The video-screen era has made them less inclined to actually pick up a book and wrestle with ideas," Salocks will say after class. "Since I teach biblical literature, the difficulties are obvious, but not insurmountable."

Marchand, who has a black belt in American Kenpo karate, sang in the choir at Our Lady Help of Christians Parish, where he also volunteered as a lector, reading from Scriptures during Mass, and as a eucharistic minister, helping serve communion. After first earning a bachelor's degree in management from UMass-Boston, Marchand finished the two-year pre-theology curriculum at St. John's in 2004, earning the equivalent of a bachelor's degree in philosophy. After a little time off working as a martial-arts instructor to pay some college loans, he is halfway through the second of four years he'll spend in the theology portion of his formation. Listening to Salocks lecture on St. Paul, Marchand looks very young – like a high school freshman determined to pass geometry.

Partway through class, Marchand raises his hand and asks how St. Paul learned what the Corinthians believed about sin and the body – that since the body would be swept away by God, what one did with one's body was irrelevant. The book that Marchand and his classmates are using as their text is the Harper Collins Study Bible, complete with extensive footnotes, including the etymological roots of various terms. After explaining what certain Hebrew and Greek phrases literally mean in English, Salocks answers Marchand that Paul was responding to letters and other forms of communication that refl ected the Corinthians' views. Seminarians are not merely learning about the writings of St. Paul in this class. They are being instructed on how to preach from Paul: how to make their future parishioners truly hear the Gospel when they proclaim it, and change their lives accordingly.

St. Paul was a practical man, and in I Corinthians 7, he confronts the problems of human sexuality and celibacy. "I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God. . . . Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I am. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion." Salocks is a slender man, with high-crowned brown hair and eyeglasses, wearing a black sweater vest over his black shirt and Roman collar. Again he fixes his gaze on Matthew Marchand when he says, "Celibacy is one of those things, you know – it's easy in the seminary. When you leave here, you could be in a parish where the nearest support, the nearest priest, is 40 or 50 miles away. The first real challenge will be when you're out there, you meet someone, and the attraction builds."

Marchand and the other young seminarians in the class are leaning forward in their chairs for the payoff , but the hour ends, and Salocks does not resolve this particular quandary, at least not before lunch.

THE REFECTORY, where all the seminarians and many of the staff eat their meals, is the size of a grade school auditorium. A long, narrow island fills the center of the room, a veritable groaning board of hot entrees, piles of steaming vegetables, and pyramids built from yogurt cartons and soda cans. One of the faculty rises from his place and leads the assembly in prayer, and the group of approximately 60 men, sprinkled with a few female staff and a few nuns, sits down to the noontime meal. Matthew Marchand passes by with a slice of pizza, and a pair of "fourth theology" seminarians, who will be ordained as priests in May, sit at one of the gleaming oak tables. They are members of the class that was in its first year when the clergy-abuse scandal hit. A solidly built man with a reddish-blond crew cut and chiseled features, Dan Kennedy, 32, is a graduate of Catholic Memorial school in West Roxbury and Providence College. A member of the Navy Reserve, he plans to become a parish priest. On the day in January 2002 when the scandal broke, all of St. John's was in the midst of a weeklong silent retreat. One seminarian went for a walk on the grounds and turned back when he saw a fleet of television news trucks parked in front of the chancery. "This is not good news," Kennedy recalls the man whispering.

For the next several months, wave after wave of bad news struck, revealing the size and scope of the abuse. "Everyone was reading the papers and saying, 'Oh, my God. What's going to happen next?' and every day it got worse," says Kennedy. In some cases, faculty members were horrified when their friends, men they had been ordained alongside, were accused of molesting children and found guilty. "These guys were out there leading double lives," Kennedy says.

In many ways, the seminarians were insulated from fallout over the scandal because of their intense course of study, which kept them busy at St. John's. Occasionally, though, they ventured out, and Kennedy recalls the time he was in a convenience store, wearing his collar, and a man verbally attacked him. "I wanted to say, 'Hey, dude, I didn't touch any kid,' but in this guy's eyes, I am the church," says Kennedy, who's a shade under 6 feet and weighs 210 pounds. In a former life, he says, his first reaction would have been to say, " 'Hey, fella, let's settle this outside.' But you can't do that. The victims are everywhere. You can't tell what this guy's experience was."

Several of Kennedy's friends, even dyed-in- the-wool Catholics he played hockey with growing up, reported that they had stopped going to Mass because of the scandal. "What I say is 'You're going to let some criminal priest rob you of your faith?' " Kennedy says. "That's garbage."

In the years after the scandal first hit, "fewer guys were coming in, and more guys were leaving" St. John's, he says. But the ordeal led to "confirmation that [I] did have a vocation to the priesthood," Kennedy says. "If God is calling me, what choice do I have? I can't say, 'Sorry, God. It's not a good time right now.' "

His collar loosened, Kennedy gestures at the seminarians around him. Nowadays, he says, he and others like him are more aware of the challenges they will face in a world in which priests' status has been diminished. "We have a better idea of what we signed up for than a priest ordained 35 years ago," he says amid the clatter of the refectory. And, he adds, even if the institutional church were to crumble around them, they would still be compelled to preach.

Matt Westcott of Somerville, a stocky, short-haired 32-year-old seminarian who served in the Marine Corps Reserve from 1997 to 2002, is having lunch with Kennedy. Westcott nods his head and says, "You don't divorce your wife when she's sick."

Jay Atkinson is the author of Legends of Winter Hill and the forthcoming City in Amber. E-mail him at jayatkinson3@yahoo.com.