By Stephen P. White.

In 2022, The Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America - where I serve as director - conducted the largest study of American Catholic priests in more than half a century. This National Study of Catholic Priests (NSCP) looked at many aspects of how American priests are faring.

Our study showed that American priests are, by and large, flourishing. They demonstrate high levels of satisfaction in their vocations and enthusiasm for their work as pastors. The youngest cohort of American priests are, by their own description, the most theologically conservative and politically moderate of any cohort.

These young priests are also the most likely to demonstrate elevated signs of burnout in their ministry.

There are several likely reasons for this. For one, older priests are more likely to have settled into the priestly life and adapted to life in the parish or religious community. Then there is the simple fact of attrition. Men in older cohorts who did not adapt well to priestly life may have already left ministry, leaving fewer members in older cohorts who report burnout.

It used to be the case that a newly ordained priest could look forward to five, ten, or even fifteen years as an associate pastor before being made pastor. The first decade or so after ordination served as an apprenticeship in the "tradecraft" of priestly life. Older priests in the parish served as mentors from whom younger priests learned how to handle (or how not to handle, as the case may be) the challenges of running a parish.

For priests in many dioceses, things are very different today. Fewer and fewer parishes have more than one priest in residence. More and more young priests are being asked to serve as pastors at younger and younger ages. One priest I know was, immediately upon ordination, appointed pastor of six parishes. That is surely an exceptional case, but the overall trend is that more is being asked of younger priests than at any time in living memory.

Bishops and seminary formators are aware of these trends and the challenges facing younger priests. In a 2021 study from CARA (Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate), young priests reported that, while seminary prepared them well for some aspects of pastoral life (e.g., delivering homilies and celebrating Mass), they felt much less well prepared when it came to personal skills, time management, and handling the stress of parish life. "The areas priests report being least well prepared for," the report said, "are all related to administration, human resources, and leadership."

In 2019, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a new Program of Priestly Formation which regulates seminary formation here in the United States. It took another three years of tinkering with details before Rome approved the new PPF, which it finally did in 2022. The most noted change was the addition of a "propaedeutic year," which is a period of human and spiritual formation which takes place before philosophical and theological studies begin.

The PPF also added a "vocational synthesis stage" at the end of seminary formation, after a candidate is ordained to the diaconate. This latter addition, lasting at least six months, during which a deacon is placed in a pastoral setting (most likely a parish) full time, is intended to provide practical experience in pastoral leadership. In the language of the PPF, the goal of the vocational synthesis stage is, "not so much acquiring new pastoral skills - though these certainly will be gained - but more adjusting to the life of ministry before advancing to priestly ordination."

While the propaedeutic year has already been introduced, many dioceses are still working out the nuts and bolts of how to structure and implement the vocational synthesis stage. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, for example, just announced last month that its first class of ordinands to follow the new vocational synthesis plan will be ordained in 2027.

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