Faithful Catholic Education Inspires Priestly Vocations in ND
It’s widely acknowledged that there is a priest shortage in the U.S., but the Diocese of Bismarck in North Dakota has been experiencing a boom in priestly vocations for several years, and Catholic education has played a critical role.
In June 2013, Bishop David Kagan ordained six men to the priesthood. That fall, 14 new men entered seminary joining the 11 who were already in formation. Following the ordination of two men in May 2016, six more entered formation. With 29 men currently studying for the priesthood, the North Dakota diocese has one of the highest rates of seminarians per capita nationwide.
Of the current 29 seminarians, 26 attended a Catholic educational institution in the diocese. The diocese supports three secondary schools and 12 elementary and middle schools across the western side of the state.
In order to fully understand the upturn in vocations, Father Josh Waltz, vocation director for the diocese, finds helpful a per capita comparison with the Diocese of Detroit. The Diocese of Detroit has around 1.5 million Catholics and 34 seminarians. The Bismarck Diocese has around 60,000 Catholics and 29 seminarians, which means that there is one seminarian for every 2,070 Catholics. For the Detroit diocese to have that same number per capita, they would need 725 seminarians.
Fr. Waltz is aware of the important role Catholic education has in fostering vocations. “Catholic education is the finest vehicle we have to catechize the youth,” he told The Cardinal Newman Society, “but it will only be successful if it is done well and the Catholic identity is strong in the school.”
The diocese has a practice of placing young, newly ordained priests in the Catholic high schools to serve as chaplains and religion teachers. Fr. Waltz is not worried that the young priests are inexperienced in the classroom: “They know the faith better than anyone in the school.” The diocese hopes that the students “will love their faith because they are being taught by an actual priest.”
Seminarian Jordan Dosch cites the presence of newly ordained priests in his high school as an important factor in his answer to the call. The young priests “taught me and showed me the importance of the Catholic faith. They were really on fire with the faith just because they were living out their vocation to the fullest degree, and it really spread to their students and inspired us as well.”
Similarly, Jacob Degele saw in the chaplain at his Catholic high school a great fire for the Catholic faith and “could just tell he really enjoyed being a priest.”
An added benefit of this instruction is that the priest is seen as a figure of authority on the faith, and young people learn to “trust his guidance in the areas of faith and morals.”
Having a young, energetic priest as a full-time chaplain and teacher allows the priest to have enough time with the students to get to know them. The presence of a newly ordained priest in the classroom also allows the students to see the priests as real people. Seminarian John Windsor said it was inspiring to see “priests do things that kids my age were doing, like snowboarding, playing guitar, singing.” Witnessing the priests in his school, Windsor saw that “priests are normal individuals with normal lives and interests,” and the vocation of the priesthood became a concrete possibility, rather than an abstract concept.
Without this kind of humanization of the priesthood, Fr. Waltz says, young men “will never consider a vocation.”
University of Mary
One priest in the diocese is putting his experience as chaplain and teacher in Catholic high schools to good use at a higher level. After his ordination to the priesthood in 2002, Monsignor James Shea was appointed chaplain and instructor of religion at St. Mary’s Central High School in Bismarck, N.D., and Trinity High School in Dickinson, N.D. Following those assignments, he was named president of the University of Mary, the only Catholic institution of higher learning in North Dakota.
The University of Mary is a Newman Guide-recommended university that specializes in career preparation, especially in the health and business fields, and was founded by the Benedictine Sisters of the Annunciation. A graduate of another Newman Guide-recommended university, The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., Msgr. Shea was the youngest university president in the nation when he was appointed in 2009.
From the start of his tenure, Msgr. Shea has championed the renewal of the University of Mary’s Catholic identity. Opening residence halls for men and women who desire to grow deeper in the faith, as well as a campus in Rome, the University has seen growth since strengthening its Catholic identity — including in the number of men answering the call to the priesthood. Seminarian Gregory Crane worked at the University of Mary for Msgr. Shea and, through working closely with Catholic education, he was “able to ask this question of vocation a little bit differently.”
Opened in 2011, the formation of Saint Joseph’s Residence Hall on the University’s Bismarck campus was prompted by a recognized need in the community — namely increased enrollment necessitated more residence halls. This need providentially coincided with Msgr. Shea’s desire that the University be more intentional in helping students choose to foster their vocations.
Although more than half a dozen current seminarians live in Saint Joseph Hall, the community is not a place just for men who are discerning the priesthood. Rather, it is an intentional community where young men can grow in the faith and help each other to grow in virtue. Jerome Richter, vice president for public affairs and an administrator who was instrumental in the inception of the residence hall, explained in an interview with the Newman Society that the objective of Saint Joseph’s Hall is to “help young men who choose it to become the person God wants them to be.” The hall endeavors to be a place of true fraternity that goes above and beyond the typical residence hall where young men strive for holiness.
That is why the University chose Saint Joseph as the patron for the hall. The saint is “the iconic person for all men and for all men’s callings,” Richter said. “All men are called to be fathers.” Saint Joseph’s example of fatherhood provides guidance for young men, all of whom are called to be a father in some way, to raise that next generation in the faith. “We’re not in the job of making priests; that’s God’s job,” Richter elaborated. “We’re in the job of making all men the fathers they are called to be.”
Saint Joseph’s Hall has benefited from the same integration of priests into the lives of students. Following his retirement, Bishop Emeritus Paul Zipfel moved into the hall to serve as a spiritual mentor to the students. Fr. Waltz also resides in the hall.
In 2010 the University of Mary established its Rome Campus, another facet that has influenced the growth of vocations to the priesthood in the diocese. The campus in Rome affords students the opportunities to experience the witness of the men studying for the priesthood at the nearby Pontifical North American College.
Moreover, the Eternal City is inspirational: “Being able to see the Church in all its universality, in all its life” in Rome helped seminarian Greg Hilzendeger in his discernment. Several of the diocese’s other seminarians also noted that it was during their semesters in Rome through the University of Mary that they felt the call to the priesthood.
Moving Forward
Catholic identity is something that the leadership of the University of Mary and Fr. Waltz take seriously. When people who are not on board with the mission of Catholic education are allowed to stay, “the Catholic identity of the school is compromised,” he says, “and when that is gone you just become a really expensive public school.”
By reinforcing its Catholic identity, the University of Mary has seen 15 men and women answer their vocations to religious life in the last three years.
Catholic education is providing for the future of the Church through the formation of lay people and future priests alike. Rooted in these strongholds of Catholic education, the Diocese of Bismarck is on track to have more ordinations this decade than any of the previous three. During the 1980s there were 12 men ordained; during the following decade, a total of 16 men were ordained. Between 2000-2009, there were 24 new priests. Since 2010, there have already been 13 ordinations.
Both Richter and Fr. Waltz are confident that the explosion of vocations need not be limited to the Bismarck diocese; other institutions of Catholic education can foster vocations by hiring those who will promote the mission of Catholic education, by having a full-time chaplain who has the time to spend with students in and out of the classroom, and by supporting students in their engagement with their first vocation to know, love and serve God through the development of virtue.
Mallory Nygard is a Catholic journalism fellow at The Cardinal Newman Society.
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