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Author Topic: Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon  (Read 45328 times)

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Offline Matthew

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Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
« Reply #45 on: August 12, 2014, 10:08:46 PM »
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  • Quote from: Tiffany

    I've never dismissed someone's suffering as nothing.

    Your saying going through the horrors of what the infantry soldiers did in Vietnam would be easier to deal with is ludicrous.  


    No, what is ludicrous is attempting to weigh which suffering is greater.

    "This person was only waterboarded. Being scourged is MUCH worse."
    "Being drowned is MUCH less painful than being burned at the stake."
    "Having your fingernails pulled out is WAY worse than having your teeth pulled out."
    etc.

    I think it's silly because I'm sure each of those sufferings is horrible in its own way. Human beings are capable of suffering in a near-infinite variety of ways.

    And it's not like you're exactly a Vietnam vet yourself. You don't think a highly thoughtful, intelligent thirty-something man can attain as good a grasp of the horrors of war as you have? You're an American single mom in your thirties! What personal experience of war can you lay claim to!?

    THAT is what I find hilarious.
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    Offline Miseremini

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #46 on: August 12, 2014, 10:23:31 PM »
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  • Didn't Jean Vianney have a similar seminary experience (with his teachers) with the addition of uncharitable fellow seminarians.?  Also Father Damian if I remember correctly had it really rough in seminary.   Maybe some things never change.
    "Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered: and them that hate Him flee from before His Holy Face"  Psalm 67:2[/b]



    Offline Viva Cristo Rey

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #47 on: August 12, 2014, 10:28:02 PM »
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  • Quote from: Miseremini
    Didn't Jean Vianney have a similar seminary experience (with his teachers) with the addition of uncharitable fellow seminarians.?  Also Father Damian if I remember correctly had it really rough in seminary.   Maybe some things never change.


    Yes, the Cure if Ars.  I was thinking of him too.
    May God bless you and keep you

    Offline Viva Cristo Rey

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #48 on: August 12, 2014, 10:48:30 PM »
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  • More Christian charity needed in the seminaries, convents and even
    Among the laity too.

    May God bless you and keep you

    Offline IllyricumSacrum

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #49 on: August 12, 2014, 11:45:30 PM »
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  • Quote from: Miseremini
    Didn't Jean Vianney have a similar seminary experience (with his teachers) with the addition of uncharitable fellow seminarians.?  Also Father Damian if I remember correctly had it really rough in seminary.   Maybe some things never change.


    His fellow seminarians started a petition to have him thrown out because he was not academically and mentally up to the challenge.
    He signed it.


    Offline IllyricumSacrum

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #50 on: August 12, 2014, 11:48:13 PM »
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  • And let's not forget good old St. Joseph Desa of Copertino, patron of struggling students.

    Offline Kazimierz

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #51 on: August 13, 2014, 01:04:23 AM »
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  • The SSPX seminary was obviously trying create one particular mould of what a priest should be. They should on bolstering and encouraging one strengths and abilites, their different gifts, rather than the Parris Island Marine boot camp, esp during the sixties.
    Certain men because of physical, spiritual, an academic capabilities, good in themselves,would obviously not fit into the SSPX mould. This does mean the man does not a vocation, but rather his place in not be found with the SSPX.

    Charity, humility and obedience to a lawful good given by those who try to genuinely form one's character. Correction likewise ought to be charitable and fraternal. To be humiliated in the manner in what we have read of the account leads down a dark path. If the psyche is not strong enough, the candidate breaks, leaves, and will suffer to that degree of what was inflicted on him. I could draw examples from Full Metal Jacket

    The superior of the monastery I was with briefly, was initially kind, welcoming and charitable. Then be brought in a suspect priest to help out with formation. We soon discovered how incompetent the superior was and how this was damaging the foundation of the fledgling community. A few years later he was arrested for child molestation, and defrocked. It took a while for to recover from this debacle.FRagging your superior office as they did in Nam does have an analagous parallel here.

    May the Resistance bring forth true goodly priests. Do not expect them from VA or overseas.Spiritual combat leaders coming from the establishment now will lead you into a massacre of the mind and soul.
    Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris
    Qui non est alius
    Qui pugnet pro nobis
    Nisi  tu Deus noster

    Offline Ladislaus

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #52 on: August 13, 2014, 10:37:47 AM »
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  • There are of course two (or more) sides to every story.  It does seem that this particular seminarian had some issues.  So, for instance, his constant forceful emphasis about how he needed hours and hours of vigorous exercise per day suggest that he had certain issues that might not be compatible with the duties of state typically required of a priest or a religious.  I knew lots of guys who got up an hour earlier than everyone else and went for a long run.  If that isn't enough, then I think you've got some problems that are incompatible with the priesthood.  Doesn't by itself necessarily mean that there's anything wrong with you, but perhaps the priesthood isn't a fit then.

    Now I saw a lot that I disagreed with in the formation process myself, but my attitude was that I am who I am to a certain extent.  If someone could persuade me that there was something wrong or incorrect about any particular attitude or opinion of mine, then that's cool.  But, at the end of the day, I thought for myself, and I didn't let the other swirl bother me much.  I just went about doing what I felt that I had to do.  Problems happen, however, when the priests continue to emphasize obedience and humility to the point that the seminarian thinks that he has to conform mentally and emotionally to be a clone of the particular Frenchman who happens to be running the seminary at any given time, or otherwise there's something wrong with him.  By trying to adopt an attitude of humility, they start to judge things about themselves to be wrong that just happen to be various personality traits or character attributes that are on their own morally indifferent.  That's when the psychological problems start.  "I know that this thing about me is defective and wrong, but I can't change it."  That's a FAR CRY from "Well, there's something about me that's not a fit for the priesthood."  Of course, the problem is that back in the normal times of the Church there were SO MANY ORDERS and different permutations on options and choices for religious orders and so many different WAYS of living out the priesthood or religious life that there was almost always SOMETHING that suited a person's temperament or personality traits.  Just because one doesn't, for instance, find resonance with Jesuit or Franciscan or Dominican or Cistercian or diocesan priest spirituality, it DOESN'T MEAN THAT ONE DOESN'T HAVE A VOCATION.

    SSPX has LONG held the absurd view that if one doesn't fit into the SSPX seminary spirituality then one does NOT HAVE A VOCATION.  That's utterly ridiculous.  Not only that, but it also often narrowed even more, so that if you didn't have the spirituality of the FRENCH SSPX, then you didn't have a vocation, despite the fact that it could simply be that French CULTURE and the French MINDSET didn't resonate with you.








    Offline Ladislaus

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #53 on: August 13, 2014, 10:43:36 AM »
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  • As an example, I often said when I was at the seminary that if there was a vocation just to be a seminarian then that would be a perfect fit for me.  I was more quiet and contemplative by nature, and the idea of what the average typical SSPX priest did after ordination did not appeal to me (going from place to place on planes, organizing, book-keeping, hustle-bustle, etc.).  I really felt that I was more suited to a contemplative / monastic style of the priesthood.  There were others there who felt the same way and even tried to get transferred to more of a monastic setting but there was huge resistance and we were told, in so many words, that if we couldn't fit into the mold of the French SSPX priest model, then we didn't really have vocations to the priesthood.  What a loss for the Church.  So many wasted vocations.

    There was a limited monastery or two here or there, but most were oversees so that choices were extremely limited ... unlike how things were before Vatican II.

    Offline Elizabeth

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #54 on: August 13, 2014, 11:20:26 AM »
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  • Quote from: Kazimierz


    The superior of the monastery I was with briefly, was initially kind, welcoming and charitable. Then be brought in a suspect priest to help out with formation. We soon discovered how incompetent the superior was and how this was damaging the foundation of the fledgling community. A few years later he was arrested for child molestation, and defrocked. It took a while for to recover from this debacle.FRagging your superior office as they did in Nam does have an analagous parallel here.



    This dynamic happens over and over again!!

     Experts say that 1 in 25 people is a sociopath.  The collateral damage is enormous, at its very worst in religious houses or schools --the military--wherever the system of order requires a holy type of obedience.  It takes years to sort out, but so many get cast to the wayside beforehand.  

    Offline JMacQ

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #55 on: August 13, 2014, 12:37:11 PM »
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  • Ladislaus, I am sure you know that nobody goes to a monastery to become a priest but to become a monk. The superior of the monastery decides who among the monks will become priests. Perhaps it is not like that anymore in the Novus Ordo monasteries.
    O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!
    Praised be Jesus ad Mary!

    "Is minic a gheibhean beal oscailt diog dunta"


    Offline Kazimierz

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #56 on: August 13, 2014, 03:38:36 PM »
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  • Quote from: JMacQ
    Ladislaus, I am sure you know that nobody goes to a monastery to become a priest but to become a monk. The superior of the monastery decides who among the monks will become priests. Perhaps it is not like that anymore in the Novus Ordo monasteries.



    There is truth in this, yet one may aspire to be a priest within a monastic order. But you do become a monk first, then we wait for what Holy Mother Church through Her priors and abbots perceive about one becoming a priest.

    Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris
    Qui non est alius
    Qui pugnet pro nobis
    Nisi  tu Deus noster

    Offline cantatedomino

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #57 on: August 14, 2014, 12:27:47 AM »
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  • Did I read correctly? Because I came away with the understanding that before the changing of the guard, there were problems with the formation - a destruction of individuality in favor of a man wearing a mask or facade.

    The replacement of the individual of character with the equilibrious pietist.  

    Why would substitution of the real man with the organizational rube be considered an honest formation?

    Quite a fascinating read, BTW. Best thing I've come across in quite a while.

    P.S. I disagree on the negative connotation given to the man's need for vigorous physical exercise. Disagree entirely. Some temperaments require extreme physical exertion to balance extreme mental and emotional exertion (including repression of emotions). Not receiving that medicine would cause manifold negative effects in the entire organism.  

    Offline SerpKerp

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #58 on: August 14, 2014, 01:28:17 AM »
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  • Imagine if all these political games of attrition were never played then the SSPX would much bigger and stronger.

    Offline Neil Obstat

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    Life as a Seminarian was like movie Platoon
    « Reply #59 on: August 14, 2014, 02:02:59 AM »
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  • .

    Quote from: [url=http://www.cathinfo.com/catholic.php?a=topic&t=33212&min=5#p2
    Elizabeth[/url]]I'm halfway through, taking a break because of its intensity and honesty. (If I watched Platoon I would be taking breaks, also).  Dang, the idea of studying Latin in French without knowing French, in France with the French... :cry:


    There is another SSPX priest whom I know, whose formation closely parallels several of these aspects here, so I know that this kind of thing is not too uncommon in the Society.

    Studying sacred theology in your mother tongue is challenging enough, but in a foreign language?  

    SUCH AS:  sitting with the Society leaders at a table for lunch, and having Bishop Fellay ask one other priest a question in German and he answers in French, and then +Fellay responds in Latin, while comments in Spanish and English dribble in from time to time.  It can't help but put you "on the spot" when your second year French studies have not quite mastered the subjunctive mood verbs they keep throwing around like a football.

    In retrospect it seems +F was doing this kind of thing because he was fishing for Liberals all along.  He wanted to earmark young potential candidates for moving into positions of power such as Capitulant or District Superior of Oceania or Poland or India.

    Quote from: SerpKerp
    Imagine if all these political games of attrition were never played then the SSPX would [have become] much bigger and stronger.

    Like that.

    .
    .--. .-.-.- ... .-.-.- ..-. --- .-. - .... . -.- .. -. --. -.. --- -- --..-- - .... . .--. --- .-- . .-. .- -. -.. -....- -....- .--- ..- ... - -.- .. -.. -.. .. -. --. .-.-.