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| Fr. Ermis |
By J. Michael Parker
For Today’s Catholic
SAN ANTONIO -- A San Antonio priest has made a significant contribution to the national conversation among Catholic bishops and seminary officials on what they must do to slow the rate of priests leaving active ministry within the first five years of priestly ministry, two professors at Oblate School of Theology indicated.
The priest, Father Norman Ermis, pastor of St. Margaret Mary Parish in San Antonio, was a 2009 Doctor of Ministry graduate at OST. His doctoral dissertation, “Experiences of the First Five Years of Priesthood and the Ongoing Formation of Priests,” earned him the School’s Father Theodore Labouré Award for outstanding scholarship for the Doctor of Ministry Degree.
Father Ermis was only the second recipient of the six-year-old award, which honors distinguished work in preparing a doctoral dissertation or a master’s thesis.
Nobody else attending Oblate’s May 15 commencement was more surprised than Father Ermis when he was summoned to center stage a second time after all the degrees had been awarded.
“I didn’t have any idea that I was going to get an award,” the priest said afterward. “The professors kept challenging things and had me rewrite parts of it. I was just glad to be finished with it. I hadn’t even looked inside the commencement program, where it was listed. I was totally clueless.”
Father Ermis’ chosen topic arose out of his nine years’ experience as vice rector of San Antonio’s Assumption Seminary.
An earlier study by the late Catholic University of American sociologist Dean Hoge noted that 10 to 15 percent of newly ordained Catholic priests leave the active priesthood within five years after ordination. Using that study as a starting point, Father Ermis sent a questionnaire to more than 200 priests across the nation with one to five years in active ministry. He received 125 responses – a 70 percent response rate.
“I was interested in learning what the experiences of real priests are in their first five years, and how dioceses connect with those experiences in their ongoing formation efforts for newly ordained priests,” he said. He asked what gives new priests satisfaction and what things have impacted their priestly ministry in negative ways.
The priest said he learned that little has been written about young priests in crisis, although there is plenty about priests under stress. Some dioceses are doing things; others were doing things in previous years but have stopped because they have had fewer ordinations.
Like Hoge, Father Ermis discovered that the first assignment a newly ordained priest receives –- both the parish and its pastor – are critical decisions. Bishops and those advising them must be “strategic” in picking the pastor and parish to which they assign a new priest, he said.
Father Ermis said a bishop’s support – or lack of it – for newly ordained priests is also critical because pastors and other priests tend to follow their bishops’ lead. New priests need to feel welcome in the priestly fraternity; they need hospitality from fellow priests.
His study found that 39 percent – almost two of every five newly ordained priests experience serious crises that impacted their priestly ministry in negative ways. A crisis could arise from a priest’s relationship with his pastor or with parishioners; it could be a breach of boundaries, or being reported to the bishop, or loneliness or celibacy, just to name a few. Some priests sense little or no support, even if support is present, because they are overworked.
“If this is true, it needs attention; and how the bishop and the diocese respond when new priests experience crises also critical.”