Need for restructuring formation program of minor seminaries

By Bishop John Thomas Kattrukudiyil

Guwahati, August 25, 2022: The Commission for Vocation, Seminaries, Clergy and Religious, North East India Regional Bishop’s Council held a two-day meeting in Guwahati to review training of future priests and religious in the region. Commission chairman Bishop John Thomas Kattrukudiyil presented the findings of an extensive survey he conducted on the current situation of formation program during April 17-18 meeting. Given below is the paper he presented at the meeting:

I wish to share with you a few thoughts on our formation system. Over the years we have restructured our formation program for minor seminaries and their equivalents. In the era when I entered the seminary, the candidates joined usually after their completion of class X. The candidates for the priesthood were given three years of Latin and English. The candidates for the religious life of women were given English classes and other lessons on religious life. The candidates for priesthood went on to do philosophy after the Latin course and then to do Theology. There was never a talk about college studies. Later, some were asked to take a college degree for the sake of meeting the requirements for managing our higher educational institutes. Though the vast majority of priests never went to college, no one considered them poorly educated persons. They did not lack the basic skills needed for pastoral ministry. You can check this fact from your own memory. We had in our lifetime the senior priests of that generation. I can name many whom you also know. They were all able to write good grammatical English and handle all their pastoral and administrative issues with competence. They created in the minds of the public an impression that catholic priests are well-educated people.

What were the plus points of the formation system that trained them? Most of the candidates at that time came from catholic schools. These schools functioned under boards that had demanded certain standards for passing class X. There was no system of ‘all-promotion’ from class I till X. If you enrolled yourself in class one, it was not guaranteed that you would reach class X in ten years. Further, in class X, you had to pass all the subjects separately. Thus, all the students who came to the seminary or convent had a good basic education. Basic education meant skills in Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. “Legere, scribere et numerare” as St Augustine had said. Modern educationists called it learning the three ‘R’s. As noted earlier, the candidates for the priesthood were first sent for three years of Latin. Latin is a difficult language. To master it, you need to have a capacity for logical thinking. Latin sharpened a student’s mind and taught him to reason. This ability to reason equipped him to acquire a good grasp of philosophy and theology. That formation helped him in the long term to solve problems long after he forgot the Latin he learned. Many students dropped out of the seminary because of their inability to cope with the intricacies of Latin. The Latin course was like a filtering system. The intellectually poorer ones failed to filter through. Those who came through that system and became priests, created in society an impression that catholic priests are a very highly educated lot. Their performance spoke very loudly. As for the women religious, the candidates were usually sent for one specialization or another after their novitiate. Since they already had good basic school education, they developed their skills through their higher education. They also created before society an image of being very well educated. They established and administered efficiently schools known for quality education. Convent education became a brand name. Girls who had convent education had a higher value in the marriage market. So far, I am talking history, not describing the present.

There came about a change in the formation system for the priests after the Vatican council. With the vernacularizing of liturgy, Latin lost its value. Latin courses were dropped from the seminary curriculum. It was replaced by a college education. So, the new candidates are now sent for what we call today plus one and plus two. When Latin was dropped, the number of survivors of the minor seminary increased. Practically no one was asked to leave the seminary for not having passed an examination. Passing plus two was not a very difficult task. This was seen as saving many ‘good vocations’ that would have been lost if there was Latin. That was the perception when this system began.

Then there came about a few important changes in the educational system in the country.

1. An all-promotion system was introduced in schools. No student was to be detained in any class. If you are enrolled in class I, then after ten years you are in class X. This had a big negative impact on the quality of students appearing for the class X examination. They would fail in class X and continue to burden the school system. The Government did not want that. So, the boards of education were asked to devise a system that would ensure that the maximum percentage of students passed the class X examinations. To achieve this, the boards ruled that there is no need to pass all the subjects to pass class X. If you get a certain total, you will get your certificate. Thus, the boards lowered the benchmark for passing class X. In this process, it was also not necessary to pass individually in subjects like mathematics or science. Even the one who gets zero in mathematics could get his class X certificate if he/she has the required total. The education boards of certain States have gone a step further and have declared that it is no more compulsory to have mathematics as a requisite subject for passing class X. Thus, a maximum number of students would have gone through the ritual of schooling at a minimum cost to the Government. The Government is aware that these students are not fit for university education. Therefore, the Government made recently the Common University Entrance Test compulsory (CUET) for admission to universities. The government itself does not give any value to the certificate it issued through its Boards of Education for schools.
2. There were changes also in the Church with the regard to the catchment area of vocations. Earlier, most of the candidates came from well-run catholic schools. Gradually the area of the provenance of vocations changed. A good number of candidates come now from non-functioning government schools. We are now facing a two-fold disaster. The first is the watering down of the education system through the practice of all-promotion and the lowering of the benchmark for passing class X. The second disaster is that most of our candidates are coming from non-functioning Government schools. Both these factors combined together give us a disastrous result.

We do not have the equivalent of the above-mentioned CUET demanded by the universities. The certificates obtained through any non-functioning government schools are sufficient for admission to our formation houses. Even a certificate from the “Open School” system is equally valid for some congregations. The consequence is that candidates who begin the formation lack the knowledge, skills and reasoning ability that make them suitable subjects of formation. We spend a lot of time and resources on them without the desired result.

Should we blame the students who came through non-functioning government schools for their poor standards? By no means. It is not their fault that they were born in a place where they had no good schools. It is not their fault that the government and the education board conspired together to water down the educational system.

Is it a mistake to promote vocations from among them? Certainly not. We need candidates. We owe that to the church and to our own future.

What are we to do then? If the government has changed its educational system and has chosen to give class X certificates to students who have not acquired the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, we should also change our formation system to address this issue. If we follow the old system of formation, presuming that our students have the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic, then we will be proceeding to build a multi-tiered system of formation on a very poor foundation. The formation of candidates to priesthood involves three years of philosophy and three years of theology. They have a year or two of spirituality preceding that. Suppose we compare each of these years of formation to a floor of a building, then we are building an eight or nine-floor building. The sisters also have an equal number of years of formation. All are building eight or nine-floor buildings. What is the foundation of a nine-floor building? In a real building, we know how much iron and cement have to go into it. In that building which is our formation system how strong is the foundation? As of now, the foundation is made up of bamboo grown in the campuses of non-functioning government schools. We are trying to build a big formational structure on that. Will we succeed? Are they fit subjects of formation? The duration of our formation system is longer than that of a doctor, engineer or architect. In spite of that, how skilled are all our priests religious to perform tasks connected with normal pastoral ministry?

Let me present to you certain realities. When I give some data now, no one should feel offended. I am taking data from the feedback I got from our own seminarians, priests and religious. This is only to make us aware of the present situation and make us think about what should be done.

I began to think seriously about this whole question when I noticed that one of my students who completed Philosophy and B.A does not know how many days there are in a month or in a year. On quizzing him further, I found out that he cannot add up even simple numbers below ten. For example, six plus five or eight plus six. But he had completed his philosophy, B.A. and regency and was ready to go to theology. I stopped him from proceeding and asked him to stay back and learn basic arithmetic and pass a test. He refused, on the plea that he would not succeed. I asked him how he passed class X and got his certificate. He said there were hardly any classes in his village school but the teachers helped him to write the examinations. I asked him to discontinue. I also asked another student who passed his philosophy to discontinue. I discovered that he too did not know the basics of arithmetic. The first question I asked him was how much is 12 X 10. He had no clue about that. He had completed his philosophy and BA. He also refused to take tuition and pass a test in arithmetic. So, he was asked to leave.

Around this time, I was asked by the Regional Conference of Bishops to be in charge of the formation commission. I thought I should extend my investigation into the situation in the region. So, I sent to all Bishops and provincials a question paper and asked them to have tests conducted at the minor seminaries and their equivalents and send me the mark sheet. I also gave the same to Don Bosco school Tezpur and had the test taken by class four students of that school. All the class four students passed and the lowest mark was 55. Though I had sent the question paper to all Bishops and provincials and formation houses, I got a very poor response. 90% did not reply. Of those that responded, 90% failed, if I were to put 40 as pass marks. Remember that the lowest mark obtained by a class four student was 55. I sent the same question paper to two of our Philosophy institutes. The results from St. Clements and Good Shepherd were equally very poor. Some philosophy students got less than 20 and one got only one mark.

At the request of the Regional Bishops, I visited most of the minor seminaries and a few of their equivalents in religious congregations. On interacting with them I found the following: Some cannot recognize or write numbers above two digits. For example, one student when asked to write in digits three hundred and nine, wrote it as 3009. The same student wrote in digits four thousand seven hundred and thirty as 400070030. He would fail in class one. But he is doing philosophy now! It does not matter if Descartes and Kant would raise their eyebrows in their graves! I also found a few who cannot make a simple purchase for values under 100 rupees and compute how much change they should get. Some cannot identify their home state on the map of India. Some do not know the importance of August 15 or January 26 for India.

I took the search further to Oriens, our theological college. Just a month ago I was at Oriens and I gave the same test to 31 deacons. Out of 31, 12 failed, if 40 is taken as pass marks. When we look through their answer scripts, we find that those questions that needed a little more logical thinking were either not attempted or done wrongly even by those who passed. This is to be evaluated against the fact that all the class four students of a school passed the same test.

This is the situation of those still in our formation system. I tried to test a few fathers and sisters active in ministry. I asked two sisters running a school how much 10 x 10 is. One said, after some hesitation, 10,000 and the other corrected her saying, no it is only 1000. I asked a priest who is active in ministry whether he heard of Sir Isaac Newton and the Laws of Motion that he had proposed. I told him I didn’t want him to enunciate the laws but only whether he had heard of this scientist. He said no. I asked him further if he had heard of Pythagoras and Archimedes. He said no. He too was the product of a government school. Sitting in the refectory over a cup of tea and after drawing the map of India on a paper napkin, I tested many fathers and sisters by asking them to locate the metropolitan cities of Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata on that map. Majority of those whom I asked failed to do so.

What are the consequences of this on Church administration? I met a provincial and a senior councillor of that Congregation. They had just paid a big bill to a contractor for the construction of a building. I asked them how the bill was made. They said it was made based on the number of square feet constructed. I asked them whether they knew how to calculate the square feet of a building. The answer was no. No one who was responsible for the payment knew how to calculate square feet. They said they trusted the contractor. Ignorance is reaching the higher levels of administration. Is that the way forward for the Church?

I feel I have given sufficient examples. Now the big question is this. Is it their fault? I say emphatically that it is not their fault. We have failed them. It was not their fault that they were born in a particular village. It was not their fault that some of them had no option but to go to non-functional government schools. But it was our fault that we did not recognize this reality and give them remedial education. We thought we were doing great when we gave them remedial education in reading and writing and attempted to teach them Queen’s English and forgot to remedy their ignorance on subjects like arithmetic, science or geography normally taught in schools. Though we demanded from them a class X certificate at the time of admission, we never checked if the candidates possessed the knowledge, skills and reasoning capacity that the certificate certified that they possessed. We tried our best to form them but they were not mentally equipped to absorb and personalize the formation. There is a saying in Latin, “whatever is received is received according to the mode of the receiver.” If we pour water into a vessel, the water is received into the vessel according to its shape. What is the mode or shape of the mind of the candidate who has become the subject of formation? Is he or she capable enough to understand and personalize the formation that we attempt to give? If we do not prepare their minds to be suitable receptacles of formation, we labour in vain. It was for this purpose that we had insisted on a class X certificate from the candidates. In our fervour for promoting vocations, we forgot that today these certificates certify nothing. Not even the Government that issued them accepts them as valid documents for college admission. The certificate holders have to prove their worthiness by writing CUET.

In the light of this situation, should we continue with the same system of formation and hope to build the future of our church on priests and religious who cannot be on par with primary school students? What is the future of the Church if we persist with the same system?

I had written several letters on this matter to Bishops, provincials and formators. I spoke once to CRI. I spoke about this matter in the last meeting of the formators we had here. How many of us gave serious thought to it? Has any formation institution changed its system of formation based on these realities I just mentioned?

What did our candidates miss when they missed out on a good school education? We know that a good school education gives students useful information on various subjects. It also inculcates in them numeracy skills and other abilities. Interlacing the vast amount of information and the various skills received in school is the ability to reason or the capacity for logical thinking. That is what the students acquire when they solve algebraic equations or prove theorems in Geometry. Even when most of the information and skills gained in school fade from their active memory with time, the logical formation of their mind will remain with them and be reflected in their performance. It will be first noticeable in the quality of the discussions in the classrooms of our philosophical and theological institutes. Later there will be noticeable excellence in their decision-making capacity at various levels of management of our church-related institutions. They will take the required initiatives and do things without being told at every step what to do. So whatever steps we take to restructure the years of initial formation must be taken from this perspective. While giving our candidates information and skills we must generate in them the capacity for logical thinking. It is not my contention that teaching the new candidates basic numeracy skills alone is going to make them fit subjects of formation. But that is a good area to begin. We need to devise a programme that will make up for their missed school education. This program should enhance their reasoning capacity and make them intellectually capable of absorbing and personalizing our multi-tiered formation program.

So dear friends, I rest my case here. Please spend some time together here and discuss to see what can be done to remedy the situation. When you admit a candidate who is not skilled enough to get a pass certificate from a primary school, how are you going to form him and prepare him to study metaphysics, psychology or theology? How are you going to prepare him or her to administer property, construct buildings, pay contractors, make budgets, keep accounts, deduct TDS, do banking or write cheques? Our future generation has to run the schools and colleges and universities that we are administering today. These are also integral parts of the pastoral work of priests and religious. We have to give leadership to our people many of whom are well-trained professionals. Will we measure up to the task? Will the Church implode on its incompetence? If we don’t change tracks, we will not need the right-wing fanatics of our political spectrum to destroy us. We will do it on our own!

We are already late to realize that the structures of our formation programme for minor seminaries and their equivalents are based on old and outdated premises. Let us do some serious thinking. Better late than never!

(Bishop John Thomas Kattrukudiyil of Itanagar is the chairman, Commission for Vocation, Seminaries, Clergy and Religious, North East India Regional Bishop’s Council)