Priests can be ‘little monsters,’ Pope warns

Pontiff criticizes seminary training at session, report says

VATICAN CITY— Pope Francis has warned that priests can become “little monsters” if they aren’t trained properly as seminarians, saying their time studying must be used to mould their hearts as well as their minds.

He also warned against accepting men for the priesthood who may have been implicated in sexual abuse or other problems, saying the protection of the Catholic faithful is most important.

The pontiff made the comments Nov. 29 during a closed-door meeting of 120 superiors of religious orders who gathered at the Vatican for their regular assembly. On Friday, the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica provided a report of the threehour, informal question-and-answer session. The Vatican never provided a transcript of the meeting.

The magazine, which interviewed Francis last year, quoted the first Jesuit pope as telling the superiors he wants them to “wake up the world” with their work, particularly with the poor. “Truly to understand reality we need to move away from the central position of calmness and peacefulness and direct ourselves to the peripheral areas,” he said.

Francis, who headed the Jesuits’ novice training program in his native Argentina in the ’70s, also warned of some of the failings of seminary training, or “formation,” such as when would-be priests merely “grit their teeth, try not to make mistakes, follow the rules smiling a lot, just waiting for the day when they are told ‘Good, you have finished formation.’

“This is hypocrisy that is the result of clericalism, which is one of the worst evils,” Francis was quoted as saying, returning to the issue of clericalism — or a certain cronyism and careerism among the men of the cloth — that he has often criticized.

The training of priests, he said, must be a “work of art, not a police action.

“We must form their hearts. Otherwise we are creating little monsters. And then these little monsters mould the people of God. This really gives me goosebumps.”

In his remarks to the superiors, Francis flagged as a risk the “huge problem” of accepting into the seminary someone who has already been asked to leave another religious institute, and cited Pope Benedict XVI’s tough line on priests who commit sexual abuse.

“I am not speaking about people who recognize that they are sinners: we are all sinners, but we are all not corrupt,” Francis said. “Sinners are accepted, but not people who are corrupt.”