INTRODUCTION
Among
all our preoccupations of the present days, there seem to be very few instances
that are not and cannot be connected with justice in a very intimate fashion. Thus
justice is the most invoked virtue; it is much appealed for and demanded, but
yet it is the most controverted.[1]
The
growing attention of the cardinal virtues and by extension other virtues is as
a result of their eminent lack and expanding interest in moral defects of man
in his every day action. The cardinal virtues repel all notions contrary to
them. However, vices destroy these virtues; the virtue of justice is
particularly destroyed in twofold fashion by false prudence of the sage and by
the violent act of the man who possess power. Justice consists in constant and
firm will to give our due to God and neighbor.[2]
Thus there is no intermediary position between justice and lack of justice. Hence
justice is not only attributed to individuals but it is an essential quality of
the work proper to our state of being. In this paper, I would make reference to
the two fashions as I focus on the subject matter of this paper which is the exercise of justice in vocational
evaluation: the plights of seminarians.
However,
before I proceed to the main focus of this paper, I would like to make a
definition of terms as they apply and are to be understood in this paper.
CONCEPTUAL CLARIFICATION/
DEFINITION OF TERMS
WHAT IS JUSTICE?
Justice
is the basic right as regarded by the society deriving from basic moral
concepts of ethics, rationality, equity and fairness, with a particular
reference to the law and religion. This is always exercised in the light of an
established norm or standard. However, justice is not inherently a matter of
laws and rules, rather, laws and rules serve justice, and the justice system in
turn serves to enforce just laws. However, as a cardinal virtue, Justice is the
moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to
God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.”
Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish
in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons
and to the common good.[3]
This paper makes a special reference to justice towards men. Amongst all the
classifications of justice, for the sake of this paper, I would specifically
refer to distributive and contributive justice. Distributive justice regulates
the relationship of a community with its members, while contributive justice obliges
the members of the community to comply with the demands of common good. While
distributive justice is concerned with the individual members of a community,
contributive justice is concerned with the general good of the community.[4] However,
these classifications of justice must be considered to be aspects of one
fundamental demand, which take on various forms of concrete relationships.[5]
In the comprehensive sense, justice
in a given situation, is the concrete accomplishment of the fundamental imperative
which calls for positive respect for the dignity and rights of others and
contribution in solidarity for the meeting of human necessities.[6]
WHAT IS VOCATION AND VOCATIONAL
EVALUATION?
Vocation
is the particular occupation for which you one trained. However, in this paper
I refer to the vocation to the priestly life, which is not just a mere
occupation, but a call and a lifestyle. Thus vocation here is to be understood
as a strong feeling of being destined or called to undertake a specific type of
work, especially a sense of being chosen by God for a religious work or a
religious life. Vocational evaluation here refers to the process of
ascertaining the value, worthiness and suitability of individual persons for
this particular vocation or way of life, in this context it refers to the
vocation to the catholic priesthood.
EXERCISING JUSTICE IN VOCATIONAL
EVALUATION
Justice
in vocational evaluation has the sole purpose of ensuring that ‘healthy’ men
are ordained or consecrated for the mission of the church. To this effect, each
man has a formation advisor he meets regularly to ensure he meets the various
goals required of him, including his healthy masculine maturing. In formation houses and in the
seminaries, each candidate is fully evaluated occasionally especially at the
end of each session to explore and ascertain the areas of his growth and
improvement and areas where he lacks and needs help, and also to examine each
candidate carefully to determine whether to vote him through to the next year
or ordination. However, there are three possibilities that can result from each
evaluation: promotion, probation or expulsion. Each candidate knows he can be expelled
for various reasons, especially in breaching the code of conduct expected of
him. It is not the wish of the seminary formation committee or formation houses
to admit students and expel them later but, the necessity of expulsion from the
formation house is to be respected.
“The discernment of a vocation is
above all the fruit of an intimate dialogue between the Lord and his disciples.
Young people, if they know how to pray, can be trusted to know what to do with
God’s call.”[7] The formation councils serve
the purpose and responsibility of nurturing these vocations to the ordained
priesthood by encouraging young men who have the requisite qualities, according
to the policies and norms of the church. There are laid down standards
and policies for the evaluation of seminarians. The administration of this
policy is the responsibility of the formation councils. The system of evaluation
and discernment according to this set standards and policies are not devoid of
justice. However, justice is not a virtue that cannot be tampered with. In the
discernment of vocation and formation of candidates, the Directors of Vocations
and formators always attend formation and evaluation meetings at the seminaries
to collaborate and assist in the evaluation process.
There are procedures, processes and
stages of formation and evaluation of students in formation in accordance to
the documents of the church and the church’s desire of the type of training a
candidate to the priesthood is expected to undergo. Thus these goals move
towards the Pauline proclamation: “until Christ is formed in you” (Gal. 4:19).
Candidates are to be formed in the image of Christ who is the divine high
priest, whom every ministerial priest acts on his behalf. However, some
formators form the candidate in their own image.
In a formation program where the
formator makes himself the ultimate standard for the formees to follow, then
the virtue of justice as applied and exercised in vocational evaluation becomes
very vulnerable. To this effect, there would be room for favoritism towards
specific candidates and victimization of specific candidates. When this starts
happening, there would be a “danger of a single story”[8]
especially in settings where candidates are not given the opportunity to face
the formation panel to defend or state their case. In a typical instance of
this nature, it won’t be totally wrong to think that the personified Holy Spirit
who is always deciding with the formators is not always right or rather not
always fair.
THE SCOPE OF VOCATIONAL EVALUATION
The
evaluation process is basically designed to assist the seminary or community,
the sponsoring diocese and the seminarian to discern the seminarian’s fitness
for the priesthood and its ministries in the church. The values and skills in
terms of which the seminarian’s candidacy is assessed are based on the church
teaching expressed in the second Vatican council, the apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis, and the code of the
canon Law. The evaluation therefore should state whether or not the candidate
possess sufficient intelligence, personal maturity, interpersonal skills,
common sense, moral character and aptitude for ministry to continue in the seminary
program and finally to be ordained to the priesthood. Thus the scope of
evaluation of seminarians is linked to their formation as well as to the
Church’s responsibility to discern vocations to priesthood as a gift from God.[9]
The
individual formators and the formation council in general sustains the
responsibility for the evaluation process and monitors the seminarian’s
progress in integrating into his life these major areas of formation which
include: spiritual maturation, intellectual/academics, pastoral development and
human/ social interactions.[10]
However, in order to facilitate this process, each seminarian works with a
department and is assigned to a director.
THE QUESTION OF JUSTICE IN
VOCATIONAL EVALUATION IN THE LIGHT OF THE SCOPE OF EVALUATION
Irrespective
of the above definition given of justice, it is still a virtue likely to be
misunderstood especially due to the opposite extremes in understanding it. The first extreme views justice
in merely negative terms; like punishing defaulters, but it would be a
misconception to see justice only in the light of dishing out punishments.
Justice is a virtue that is first and foremost positive, thus giving every one
his/her due. However the other extreme is viewing justice as a vague and
sentimental desire to help everyone.[11]
This is often under the guise of mercy, but it is important to note that this
second extreme of justice has no direct link to being merciful, but can be
easily linked with partiality or favoritism. Thus mercy is leniency and
compassion shown toward offenders by a person or agency charged with
administering justice, and not a replacement or alternative for justice.
What
does the seminary and vocation councils as a community owe the seminarians?
This is a question of distributive
justice. The seminary and formation councils owe the seminarians an ideal
catholic priestly formation and fairness and justice in evaluation. Evaluations
always result in promoting, probating or dismissing a particular candidate in
question. In vocational evaluation, justice would imply promoting those
candidates who merit promotion and not dismissing or probating them out of
personal prejudice, bias or subjective judgment (victimization), and also
dismissing or probating those candidates who merit it and not promoting them
based on favoritism or ‘god-fathernism’. This boils down to the basic notion of
justice as ‘giving to each what is due’. Expelling candidates who merits
expulsion belongs to the first extreme of justice which deals with so-to-say
punishment, while promoting candidates who merit expulsion deals with the
second extreme of justice which deals with the notion of justice as a vague and
sentimental desire to help everyone. In serving justice too, candidates are to
be corrected about wrongs before the pronouncement of judgment on them.
However, there are offences that are not debatable in the seminary system,
especially when scandals are involved and impediments are incurred. Formators
on their own part can try and avoid the use of harsh expressions like ‘he is
not formable’, ‘he doesn’t have a vocation’, ‘he is not called’, or ‘his
vocation is not valid’ even if a seminarian is to be sent away.
What
do the individual seminarians owe the seminary as a community? This is a
question of contributive justice
which demands that the individual seminarian should comply with the demands of
common good. Thus, individual seminarians owe an allegiance of obedience to the
bishops or superiors and especially compliance to the community or seminary
rules and conducts. The individual seminarian should cooperate with the
formators to achieve and imbibe the ideal formation in them. In other words,
the seminarians should not be stubborn or resistant to formation. Thus the
greatest justice the seminarians can do to the seminaries and the church in
general is to make them self open to formation. Seminarians are
to be fully committed to the life of the seminary community and learn how to
contribute generously to it and to receive humbly from its resources. Doing
justice to the seminary system would imply that seminarians who lack the
positive qualities for continuing in the seminary should not nourish false hopes
and illusions with resultant damage either to themselves, to fellow
seminarians, or to the church. However on the part of the formators, if
seminarians do not have the qualities that will allow them to work as priests
in a harmonious and effective way, it would only be an exercise of justice to
the individual seminarian and to the church to communicate this to the
seminarian in question as early as possible and in a constructive manner.
There
would be an alteration or breach of justice when
seminarians are convicted based on a negative evaluation. Fair hearing should
be given to seminarians’ assessment of themselves and to those who can speak on
their behalf. It is equally unjust to subject matters of the internal forum to
evaluation and assessment. This is to say that confidentiality is part of the
justice the seminary owes the individual seminarians.
Moreover,
mutual respect and collaboration should mark the relationship between
seminarians and formators. Each has his right and autonomy, yet cooperation,
mutual knowledge, and trust are vital for the good of candidates and benefit of
the Church. Formators are to have good knowledge of the seminarians in order to
aid good evaluation and avoid misjudgments. Knowing individual students would
require a level of trust to be established in order for the candidate to be
comfortable in opening himself up, especially at the areas of his fears,
weaknesses and challenges where he would need help. This type of collaboration
required between formators and seminarians is especially important in regards
to the recommendation of candidates for admission or promotion and their
continuing evaluation and on-going formation.
Seminarians
profit most from a system of periodic evaluation in which they receive clear
and accurate information about their behavior and attitudes so that they can
change and correct what is inappropriate and develop in those areas in which
they may be weak. This evaluation is the responsibility of the formation councils.
However, the attitude with which evaluation is approached is vital to its
effectiveness. This approach can either ensure justice or alter it. To ensure justice in the evaluation system,
the council and the candidates are to approach the system in a spirit of mutual
trust and confidence, relating in a healthy positive way.
THE PLIGHT OF SEMINARIANS
This
refer to the difficult situations, especially unpleasant and trying ones
seminarians find themselves as a result of evaluation, especially in situations
where justice is not properly exercised or administered. The evaluation system
for assessing seminarians owe justice to the seminarians and ought to
administer justice properly, but in some case because of ignorance, negligence,
prejudice or the mistake of human imperfection like false witnessing and
misconceptions, justice is not properly administer. These cases of misjudgment
leave the seminarians in question in a state of pandemonium, of sorrow and
difficulty and most of the time they feel the lack of justice but can’t fight
for themselves. Some of the plights of seminarians who are denied justice in
the seminary evaluation system and those who are afraid of the evaluation
system include:
·
VOCATION
CRISIS: this is especially regarding to seminarians who are
still in the seminary system but however, always maltreated, victimized of
picked-up on. These seminarians experience some kind of vocation crisis, a
feeling of instability and uncertainty about their vocation or call to this
particular way of life. This situation can be remedied by a series of spiritual
direction session.
·
LACK
OF OPENNESS AND TRUST TO THE FORMATION COUNCIL: some
seminarians are fearful about the seminary evaluation system, therefore they do
all it takes to remain in the system, as a result many seminarians hide their
true self away from formation, showing off the favorable side of them; however
it takes enormous energy to maintain an image of pretence.
Many
seminarians have their reservations about the seminary evaluation council, and
therefore do not divulge any negative thing about themselves in the personal
evaluations. This is however, harmful to them, because they are not going to
get the necessary help needed to make right what is wrong; as a result they
place a barrier to authentic formation.
·
HATRED
TOWARDS THE CHURCH: when seminarians are denied fair
hearing and justice in the evaluation process and as a result are sent away
from the seminary, a number of them develop a kind of resistance, resentment
and hatred towards the church. In some cases, some cease being Catholics, while
some stop attending liturgical services. For the rest whose faith is greater
than their disappointments, they still attend liturgical functions but in some
cases are not really pledging support for the church as much as they can. However,
in extreme cases, they attack the church in different platforms and by
different means; writing articles against the church basis and belief with
strong criticism. Many ex seminarians don’t support the church because of the
way they were sent away from the seminary: “we and the ‘holy spirit’ have
decided”, so they always feel the ‘holy spirit’ is not always fair.
·
FEELS
THE CHURCH IS NOT FAIR ENOUGH: When a young man feels
God may be calling him to the priesthood, after a prayerful discernment and
perhaps spending some time talking to a spiritual director (priest) he knows
and trusts and he enters the seminary, does his best but expelled, he feels
like a failure and he feels the church is not fair.
·
FIXATION:
this is not to say that ex-seminarians suffer from carry over, but it is to say
that they are fixed on the seminary life style which they are accustomed to,
especially when a seminarian have spent a good number of years in the seminary
before being expelled. In this case, it takes quite some time to fit themselves
to the outside society coupled with their battle of the disappointment of missing-out
or giving up their aspirations to the priesthood. Thus, for a while, a
seminarian who is expelled from the seminary will still carry the persona of a
seminarian, until he is able to fit in and identify with the new fate he is to
embrace. This particularly makes them feel odd and lost in the outside world.
·
TRANSFER
OF AGRESSION: this entail some kind of frustration,
thereby causing a person to be easily irritated or upset. This kind of
situation gives rise to questions like: ‘why is God’s will always not fair?’
Here some develop the tendency of blaming all their shortcomings and failures
on other people and situations beyond their control. They tend to think nature
and life is unfair to them.
EVALUATION
The
evaluation of seminarians fosters growth in formation while continuing the
process of discernment. However, seminarians are to have a platform and procedures
for responding to matters raised in the evaluation process, but ultimately, all
doubts should be resolved in favour of the church. Justice is always to be
fostered in the seminary formation system; seminarians are in the seminary to
be formed, therefore they should not be sent away at the slightest matter of
mistake or ignorance.
If
the seminarians are in the seminary to be formed, why do they get expelled? Is
there really a person not formable? Does it mean the formators fail in their
responsibility? These are questions that can rise out of curiosity. However, in
the evaluation of seminarian, strict adherence is to be given to the stipulated
procedures provided by the church.
CONCLUSION
The
evaluation system of the seminary is always carefully compiled to ensure
justice is not denied any student. This is to also ensure confidentiality and
for the purpose of providing a professional opinion about the suitability of a
seminarian for the priestly life and ministry, as well as his readiness for
advancement. However this evaluation is based on a broad consultation among
those responsible for the formation of seminarians as candidates for
priesthood. These evaluation criteria are drawn from the program of priestly
formation, other church documents and the experience of the seminary formation
personnel. Evaluations are not to be used for otherwise purposes, it is to be considered
valid only at the time of its presentation, otherwise, it would imply
condemnation; meaning that a student has been perpetually given a particular
tag, even if he improves or changes in his attitude. Thus to avoid this,
evaluation is done occasionally to access student and see their improvements.
During
the cause of seminary formation, each seminarian undergoes formation and a
process of discernment in both the internal and external forum. For the sake of
justice and avoidance of the breach of confidence, those who are involved in
formation in the internal forum are recommended not to be part of the
evaluation committee or councils.
[1] K. PESCHKE,
Christian Ethics: Moral Theology in the
Light of Vatican II, Theological Publications, Bangalore 2001, 225.
[2] The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Society
of St Paul, Ibadan 2015, 405.
[3] Ibid.
[4] K. PESCHKE,
Christian Ethics: Moral Theology in the
Light of Vatican II, Theological Publications, Bangalore 2001, 233.
[5] K. RAHNER
Ed., Encyclopedia of theology: A Concise
Sacramentum Mundi, Burns & Oates, Tunbridge 1993, 796.
[6]
Ibid.
[7] POPE BENEDICT XVI, Response to questions by the
bishops of the United States in
Washington, D.C., April 16, 2008
[8] A
phrase used by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche to explain a situation where there is
only one side to a story, especially a case where majority of people take the
testimony of a particular person as the ultimate truth.
[9] UNITED
STATES CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS, Program
of priestly formation 5th edition, Washington D.C., 2006, 89.
[10]
ST. PATRICK’S SEMINARY, the mentoring and
advising of seminarians, Menlo Park, California 2001, 3.
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