An Interview with Jonathan Englert,
Author of The Collar

Why this book? Why now? When I began The Collar almost five years ago, the priesthood was suffering from a chronically negative portrayal in the press, and the situation is worse now. I knew from personal experience that most priests’ lives weren’t negative at all, and were very different from the public perception. Moreover, as a convert to Catholicism I was astounded at how little Catholics and non-Catholics know about the priesthood.

They didn’t know that divorced men could become priests, or they assumed that priests take a vow of poverty (they don’t). Priests were seen at a distance instead of as living, breathing human beings with needs, flaws, and strengths – people who face trials, people like the rest of us. Their calling to become priests was almost unintelligible. The Collar challenges this perception by immersing the reader in the life of a seminary when this calling is being constantly tested, poked, and prodded.

There is probably no better time to write a book about priests and seminarians. These people affect so many of us and yet they’re in real danger of becoming virtually extinct –in part, at least, because they have always been taken for granted.

Extinct is a strong word.  Is the crisis in vocations really that bad?

Without a doubt. There are not enough new priests to meet the needs of an ever-growing Catholic population and a rapidly retiring clergy. In ten to fifteen years many churches simply won’t have Mass on Sundays, and basic priestly functions that Catholics have come to expect just won’t be there or they won’t be the same. It really is that bad. This crisis – more than any conflict between ideological and political values – threatens to put an end to the Church as we know it in the United States.

But doesn't your book focus mainly on second-career vocations rather than the larger aspects of seminary education in the United States?

Seminary education is essentially uniform in the United States. What seminarians learn and how they learn it is basically the same. In fact, the term “second-career vocations” is almost misleading in that the average age of the seminarian today is above thirty and most have had a previous career. Almost every seminary in America could be called a second-career seminary.

For someone considering entering the priesthood, would The Collar answer their questions?

Yes. I think The Collar is a must-read for anyone considering a vocation to the Catholic priesthood. But it’s much more than that. It’s a must-read for Catholics who might wonder what’s happening to the priesthood and what all of this might mean for their own parish, their own faith, and even their identity as Catholics. The Collar is also for anyone – Catholic or non-Catholic – who has ever been curious about who these men are. There’s no book out there that takes a reader inside seminary life and into the heads of seminarians and priests like The Collar does.

So it would answer the question, "Why would anyone want to become a priest?"

The Collar comes at this question from many angles. Why does anyone give up most of his personal autonomy, the ability to make money, the chance to live in his own house and have a mate, in order to serve other people? Obviously, one of the most intriguing angles is the actual call from God that most of these men seem to feel. The call to become a priest must be pretty powerful to overcome all the forces, external and internal, that might drown it out today. The Collar focuses on this struggle by chronicling the daily lives of seminarians and their inner lives as well.

When did you first become interested in priests and seminaries?

I wasn’t raised a Catholic, although my heritage is Catholic. I am told I was baptized on a baby grand piano by a family friend who was a priest, but there is no documentation of this, so I had to be conditionally baptized when I became a Catholic as an adult. I went to Mass a handful of times as a kid. Even so, I was always aware of a difference between ordinary people and the men in black shirts and white tab collars. I had an almost instinctive respect for them, but this changed when I was twelve and went on a spiritual retreat with the Boy Scouts. I tried to confess, but the priest was rude and dismissive. I wasn’t a Catholic, he said. At that point, whatever interest I had in becoming Catholic evaporated and remained absent for many years. The experience has stuck with me, because it told me a lot about the kind of power a priest can wield and how he can either bring people closer to God or push them farther away.

You mention you were turned away, as a reporter, by two seminaries. Can you tell us more about what happened? 

I won’t name names, because there are a lot of good people involved trying to do good work at those places. Basically I think the dioceses involved were afraid of what I might find. They gave me access and then got cold feet. This was hard to take because I had developed excellent relationships with several of the men. But to some extent I understand. One of the priests I met, who was initially held up to me as a model pastor, turned out to be a sex offender. Also, I had doubts about the quality of many of the candidates, and in an environment like that The Collar would never have worked as well as it does.

How can we trust that as a Catholic your reportage will be objective? I wrote this book in part because I was tired of reading the sugar-coated stories of priests and seminarians in Catholic publications. I am a reporter by training and a humanist by inclination. I believe that most people can smell propaganda – I actually think that is part of the problem in recruiting new priests. I mean, the stories people would respond to about religious life just aren’t being told.

People simply don’t buy fairy tales, nor do men commit themselves to lifelong religious service based on a fairy tale. The real vocation story is almost always messy, filled with ambiguities, and it can do more than any fairy tale to underscore the triumph of faith. The real story is not only a better read but a corrective to the widespread misperceptions about this incredibly difficult occupation.

How many primary interviews did you conduct?

I conducted five primary interviews. That is, I spent a great deal of time following five particular seminarians through their daily lives at the seminary (and back home) for more than a year. Although I interviewed many other people, these five men represented my main focus. They were a real cross-section.

Dean Haley and Ron Kendzierski were first-years. Dean was a former Marine medic, and Ron had been blind from birth and had earned two master’s degrees before going to seminary. Jim Heiser and Jim Pemberton were roughly halfway through seminary. Heiser had raised a son on his own. Jim Pemberton was a former marketing executive for a major amusement park and had four children and three grandchildren. Don Malin was divorced after twelve years of marriage and a professional musician who was in his final year before ordination.

I went deep into the lives and experiences of these men. As a result, The Collar moves from the struggles and doubts of the early stages of seminary life (Dean and Ron) to the issues of the middle stages (Heiser and Jim Pemberton) and on to Don, who in many ways was a model of what the seminary is ultimately supposed to produce.

Did the men you interviewed go on to become priests?

Some did, many did not. One thing I realized along the way was that when places talk about how full their seminary programs are, they’re counting their chickens long before they’re hatched. It might look good for PR, but what you need to look at is ordinations. How many people are actually ordained?

Were any particular issues uniformly difficult for the men you followed? 

The biggest question the men have is “Can I do this for the long haul? Am I worthy?” And to a much lesser extent, they wonder, “What is this church that I’m committing myself to, and what kind of shape will it be in a few years from now?”

The concept of celibacy must be a hot topic.  And what about worldly possessions?

You’d be surprised. Celibacy wasn’t as big a deal as you’d think. For some of the younger men maybe, but even most of them seemed to have come to terms with it. They seemed to know that it is always going to be something of a struggle. A popular seminary joke is “When does celibacy stop being an issue? Sometime after you’re dead.” What’s bad – and what seminaries watch out for – is when some guy wants to become a priest because of the celibacy requirement, not despite it. Generally seminarians’ biggest concern is obedience and having a lot of significant personal decisions made for you. This can be especially hard for men who have lived on their own, had careers, and raised families.
And about worldly possessions: These men are training to be priests, not monks. Priests can own things. They just don’t earn enough money to own a lot of things.

Did the subject of the sexual abuse scandals and litigation come up? And if so, did you perceive much discomfort over this subject at the seminary?

The subject definitely came up. After all, the first scandals broke just a few months before the school year had begun (and they haven’t ended yet). People weren’t really sure what to make of the scandals, how they would affect the Church and the priesthood in the short and long term. People talked openly about them, and many people struggled with what had happened, especially the response of the Church’s leadership.

Things are still unsettled, and the shadow of the scandals still complicates the decisions of men thinking about a commitment to the Church. On the other hand, many seminarians and priests have come to recognize that the fundamentals – the ideal of service, spiritual leadership, compassion – have not changed, and if anything there is even more of a need for them to pursue their calling, in part as a kind of corrective for the priests and officials who have done such damage to the Church.

Did any of the men you spoke with mention being gay, or talk about a gay presence at the seminary?

Although it is widely assumed among seminarians that many priests are gay, I found no evidence of a “gay culture” that some have claimed exists in the seminaries. On the contrary, the gay seminarians I did get to know kept their sexual orientation a secret because they worried that general knowledge of it might derail their ordination.   

You mentioned that more older men are entering the seminary than ever. How is this affecting the nature of the priesthood?

Older seminarians bring a lot of good things to the table. They have much more practical knowledge that they can use in running a parish. But more important, they bring maturity and life experiences that can forge important connections with their parishioners, who see that their priests can offer counsel that is based not only on doctrine but on real-world experiences. Also, an older man usually has a better sense of what a truly long-term commitment to the Church can mean. Of course, there have been many great priests and many saints who started young.