The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1901-06-29
HARDsHIPs OF PRIESTS.
Causes to WhicA3,a High Mortality I.
AScribed.

Ascribed.
TWenty-6 priests are reported to
have died in the Catholic diocese of
New York in the past ecclesiastical
ear. The mortality in the Brooklyn do
cese is also notable. The vacancies thus
created, the fact that the other priests
are incapacitated for various causes
nd the leaves of absence and vacations
cause demand for the immediate SER
vices of the young priests just out Of
the seminaries, and their places in the
training schools must be filled to keep
up the supply, says the New York Sun.
Some recruits are to be expected
from the classes that are now being
graduated from the various Catholic
colleges, and the official notice of the
date on which they must present them
selves to the diocesan authorities for
examination has been issued. The
board Of examiners requires them to
show that they are in perfect health,
of legitimate birth, and that no heredi-
tary faint of insanity may be feared.
The mental qualifications Of the can
didate must be indicated by his ability
to translate passages from Latin and
Greek into English and vice versa, by
an English composition and by a
knowledge Of Christian philosophy.
His moral status is vouched for by his
pastor. The best candidates are apt
to be sent to Rome or to take some
other Continental course in which
there may be vacancy.
The life of young priest is hard
and exacting. Long hours of fasting
and confinement in the confessional and
irregular and unhealthful meals tell on
his constitution as the long death list
above cited shows. 1t is charged also
that seminary life has something to do
with it. The Rev. DR.. John Talbot
Smith, who has written an elaborate
work, "Our Seminaries, an Essay on
Clerical Training" goes so far as to
assert "that SO per cent of the newly
ordained need nursing for months and
sometimes years after ordination" He
adds: Parents are weary of welcom-
ing at ordination the weak, bloodless,
emaciated. ill-shaped, dyspeptic bodies
Of their sons, who entered the seminary
with the vigor and vitality of the aver
age collegian."
The picture he draws is not an invit-
ing one; or rather he says he presents
to dispassionate consideration two pic
tures-on this side a graduating class
from any Of our colleges, robust, cheer
full, muscular, active, healthy men,
strong enough for any tussle that life
may give them; on that side the same
class five years later going up for ordi-
nation after the seminary career, every
man lean OF worn in appearance, the
little flesh left them of tiabby texture,
their stomachs and nerves played out,
and the pleasant certainty ahead that
an ordinary attack Of disease will end
them, or that years of recuperation
will be required or THAT real health will
never be theirs again.
The causes for this he describes as
an insistence on European ideas Of cler-
zeal decorum in the seminaries, lack of
proper exercise in Difference to a theory
of clerical physique and activity that
does not belong to this country, and
the sudden and cherries change of
food. He has yet to meet the priest
who could speak in praise of his semi
nary refectory. 1t was usually run on
the simplicity basis.
"The writer has seen MANY clerical
tables," he continues, "set forth after
this simplicity, and knew that the din
ers carried away dyspepsia and bad
temper from them. All institutions of
learning follow this simple regime now
adays; but the butter is poor, for really
good butter never yet reached a semi
narian's table; the coffee and tea al
ways pure slop; the fruit and vegeta.
bles are without character; and so on
through the list until simplicity be-
comes horrible thing to the student"
Enforced silence ana spiritual read
ing at meals he also severely condemns.
In this he has strong ally in Bish-
op McQuaid, of Rochester, who has
written also on American seminaries in
somewhat the same vein. The bishop,
speaking Of the last cited phases of
seminary life, declares that priests do
not care to recall their sufferings and
hardships nor count up the number of
their associates who fell by the way,
victims of unwholesome food, un-
healthy housing, nor think of the brok-
EN- down constitutions leaving the
seminary, that soon succumbed to the
exhausting labor of the ministry"
He frankly states that "there Is no
justifiable reason why church autliori-
ties in America should be hampered by
the customs and usages of older coun-
tries where innovations are looked on
as sacrileges.''
The bishop has had more than sixty
years experience as pupil, professor
and superior in college and seminary
life. He puts himself on record against
silence and reading at meals and at his