At St. Paul seminary, ‘process groups’ promote human flourishing

“I get to really be known. I get to experience even being loved in parts of me that are quite difficult.”

When people think about seminary formation, they may think primarily about classes in theology and philosophy - along with, perhaps, some basics in canon law, and practical classes like how to deliver a good homily.

But in the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis, there’s another element to seminary formation worth mentioning.

Credit: The Saint Paul Seminary

Three years ago, The Saint Paul Seminary introduced what it calls “process groups” as part of its propaedeutic year – the first year of seminary formation, which is dedicated to prayer rather than academics.

During the propaedeutic year, the seminarians do not take classes. They undergo an intense process of discernment, fasting from media and computers.

And at The Saint Paul Seminary, they also participate in process groups, consisting of about eight seminarians each, and which are focused on talking through challenges the men experience in their lives - including relationships and mental health, along with struggles in studies or obstacles in their prayer lives.

The process groups are offered as part of the seminarians’ “human formation,” said psychologist Paul Ruff, Director of Counseling Services at the seminary.

Church documents discuss four dimensions of seminary formation – intellectual, spiritual, human, and pastoral.

The human formation, explained Ruff, deals with the foundational human capacities on which the other dimensions will build: “What's my capacity for managing my emotional life, for integrating my sexuality, for being able to have interpersonal relationships, to love and be loved?”

The process groups offered at the seminary are designed to enhance those capacities.

Each group meets weekly, and is led by Ruff or another psychologist. 

“We just say, what do each of you as individuals want to talk about today that you'd like the group's assistance with?” Ruff told The Pillar.

“People talk about family-of-origin issues. They talk about past history with a girlfriend. They talk about being pissed off at each other, whatever. But it's a place where they talk and they go deeper and there's no arguing. People will really work hard to understand and be authentic with each other.”

Ruff’s role in the group is not to fix problems, or try to push the conversation a certain way, but to facilitate a conversation, redirect if things start to veer off the rails, and make it a safe place to process and discuss things.

The groups have resulted in tremendous personal growth for the men, Ruff said.

“I've had guys say things in group like, ‘I know that I'm a pretty awkward person,’ to the other group members, ‘I'm trying to learn how not to be awkward. I bet I bother you sometimes. Please let me know and please help me with that’.”

“A guy who can say that out loud astounds me. He would have otherwise been a guy who was trying for years not to be awkward,” he reflected. “So there's just a sense of they really get to engage their growth, take ownership of their growth, know what their issues are, know it's okay to have problems.”

Blind spots and hidden areas

When seminarians begin with a process group, they are often hesitant to share much about themselves. They might cautiously reference a childhood wound or current struggle. But mostly they stick to superficial things - like struggling to get to bed on time, for example.  

Andrew Renier took part in a process group three years ago.

He told The Pillar that talking through a very small thing, early in the process, helped him — and his group — realize how to better engage with each other, and how to trust each other with bigger things. 

Each day, the seminarians have a morning holy hour all together, Renier explained. Mornings are a time when Renier typically finds that he develops a lot of phlegm - and he needs to clear this throat.

“And I just clear my throat like normal, like, this is normal, this is just what I do because I have to get rid of this uncomfortable feeling in my throat,” he said.

One day during the process group, when Ruff asked if anyone had anything to share, a seminarian raised his hand, and said, “Paul, I just can't stand Andy clearing his throat in the chapel every single morning. It really gets to me, it's so agitating.”

“As funny as that sounded to perhaps hear or talk about, it was actually really hard for me to receive,” Renier acknowledged. “I just felt so misunderstood and very angry actually.”

“I'm just in this internal monologue, I was saying to myself, he didn't even bother to ask me why I do that or is there a reason I do that…he asked that so pointedly.”

Ruff asked the seminarian to address Renier directly, and to give him a chance to receive the criticism, and to respond.

“I got a chance to explain what happened and why I do that, and I've actually left the chapel, I told them, a few times, to go clear my throat in a quiet room away from everybody praying, so I won't be as much of a distraction,” Renier said.

The discussion did not fix the problem – Renier still experienced a need to clear his throat in the mornings, and hearing him do so was still something the other seminarian found irritating.

But what changed was their ability to share – and receive – this experience from another person.

“It's not like we figured out a solution and now everything is fine,” he said. “It's just the way that you're communicating, and…seeing each other, understanding each other.”

“It was just this encounter of conflict, really, that I didn't know this about myself, that it was bothering other people, and I came to know that. But also, there was understanding on his part, so we actually grew closer together, him and I.”

“I think that was the beginning for me, that one little thing that happened two weeks into the program, that someone was agitated about me clearing my throat - that was the point in which I started to realize this thirst in my heart to be seen and to be known and loved,” he reflected. 

“That was a part of something in my heart I didn't know about, but it was also a vulnerable part of my heart that I didn't really realize I needed to share.”

Learning to bare one’s heart

Annoyances at someone clearing their throat may seem trivial. 

It took some time for the men to grow in vulnerability and become comfortable sharing heavier topics, said Peter Flynn, who took part in a process group two years ago.

He described the experience as “kind of nerve-wracking” at first.

“I think especially in our culture today, there's not a lot of sharing what's on your heart or being vulnerable. So entering in was definitely a little bit intimidating at first.”

During their first meeting, Ruff, the psychologist, made a comment to the effect of, “Yeah, this year I don't really know how much energy I have for this.”

“And I remember being shocked,” Flynn said. “It's kind of crazy. Coming from the working world, I would never go into a meeting with people and be like, ‘I don't know how much energy I have for this meeting, but here we go.’ But I remember being super struck by it, because it was just very real and honest. And I remember thinking like, okay, this is the level of honesty in a sense that I aspire to have. And I think it opened a door for me a little bit as to you can be real, you can be honest about things, and it's not going to push people away.”

As the year progressed, Flynn said the men slowly learned how to be open with one another.

“There's a dance to it. You enter in, and it always feels like you're entering this new scary, vulnerable territory. It's a very slow process where each day, each time you meet, you bare a little bit more of your heart. Like what are people going to think about this?”

It can take time to build a relationship of trust between just two people, Flynn noted, but in this case, it was a group of eight people plus the moderator. And the group members were people whom he did not choose and did not even know before the beginning of that school year.

Carter Anderson, who participated in a process group two years ago, agreed.

“I think anytime you enter into something where you're opening yourself up in a new way or shining light on an area of your heart, it's going to be [uncomfortable], and I think in any relationship there's going to be tension and awkwardness,” he told The Pillar.

At first, Anderson found it particularly difficult to tell other people when he was angry with them.

But what the process groups helped him realize, he said, is “that there can't be a deepening of friendship - and especially brotherhood, but any relationship - if there's not that risk of vulnerability and even a risk of speaking into the lives of others saying, ‘I'm going to be vulnerable by saying this is how I perceive you’.”

Anderson said he thinks there can be a tendency to avoid telling others when they have been a source of hurt or brokenness – either out of pride or a desire to avoid conflict.

“It's easy to think it's a proper Christian response to just kind of bottle that up or hold it back,” he reflected.

“But that doesn’t lead to a friendship and brotherhood in the very place where there's brokenness between us,” he said.

This realization – that acknowledging and talking through points of anger can help forge deeper relationships – is something that Anderson said has changed the way he interacts even with friends and family outside the seminary.

“It was pivotal for me to recognize that these different feelings of anger or frustration with a brother can be a possible harbinger for a true relationship in Christ,” he said.

Credit: The Saint Paul Seminary

Growing in vulnerability, growing in relationship

As the months went on, the men slowly grew in vulnerability and trust.

They brought up deeper and more painful issues – like broken family relationships back home.

And as they did, they found acceptance from the other members of the group. They weren’t judged or rejected. They were seen and understood. They were met with a gaze of love.

“There's this element of vulnerability where I take a risk in this area that no one knows about me, and as time goes on, I'm able to enter in more deeply, and then I invite them in by being vulnerable to go deep with me as well,” Renier said.

“And I'm seen in that unknown, but there's a risk that these guys could reject me, there's this risk, that's love, you take a risk to put yourself out there and every next step, you don't know where you're stepping. But then when you get there, you realize there's eight pairs of eyes that are looking at you, and they're gazing upon you in love and they want to be there for you in that.”

For probably the first half of the year, Renier said, he was unable to look the other men in the eyes during the process group meetings.

He said he just wasn’t ready to receive their love and support and encouragement, and to let them share in his experiences of pain.

But as the process went on, he said, he was eventually able to raise his eyes and look at each person in the circle, to recognize their presence, whether it was a moment of vulnerable sharing for him, or a moment in which they were calling him higher.

The men learned how to share, and how to receive what was being shared. They learned to cry in front of one another – and with each other.

They also discovered that they were not alone in their wounds. Other people also had ruptures in their family lives. Other people also struggled with the same temptations, had trouble with their prayer lives, felt abandoned or insecure.

For Renier, the process helped him recognize areas where God wanted to heal him. And when he recognized those wounds – which he had really not even been conscious of before – he could also bring them to prayer.

“Can I allow the Lord to point out the things in my life I don't know about myself that he wants to call me higher, speak truth into? And then also, in that, can I be vulnerable with him and allow him to see these parts of my heart? He already knows it's there, but…can I let him look at me? Can I let him gaze upon me?” he reflected.

From a human perspective, Renier said the process groups deepened his ability to live in a community of persons, to live organic and authentic relationships.

“These guys are delighting in me right now, or they're present to me and they're not trying to fix anything, there's no resolution most of the time, it's just they're with me, and that presence is healing from a human perspective,” he said.

He also came to realize that God was inviting him to be more vulnerable in his prayer life, just as he was learning to do with his classmates in the process group.

He said there can be a tendency to approach God with an attitude of, “Lord, here's a [broken] part of my heart, and I know you know this about me, but I don't want to give it to you, I want to fix it first. I want to get in there and make it perfect because I want to present it to you like it's perfect. I don't want to be vulnerable enough to admit my weakness, I don't want to be vulnerable enough to admit that I need someone else.”

Seeing the response of his brother seminarians when he shares his heart with them gives him insight into how God responds to him, he said.

When he feels like God cannot love him in his brokenness, he remembers how the men in his process group love him in his brokenness.

“Did they run away? No. Did they shame you? No. Did they mock you? No,” he said. “You guys looked at me, you hugged me and you were with me.”

Flynn said one of the most important things he learned in those process groups was how to be open to other people’s perspectives.

“It opened my eyes to see how other people think about things,” he said. “At times, I remember during the year, it would baffle me - how can you think about that in that way? Clearly the way I'm thinking about it is the right way…I think it definitely gave me some good perspective on just how different people think, coming from different walks of life, and how maybe my perspective isn't the end-all be-all.”

Anderson agreed. He said it was eye-opening “to see sometimes how poorly we view ourselves.” Hearing how differently other seminarians – perhaps coming from different cultural or family backgrounds – perceived things differently than he did was striking, he said.  

At one point during the year, Flynn said, the father of one of the seminarians died.

“Just being with him as he processed the grief, and grieving with him, was a very new experience to me,” he recounted.

“I remember the whole time it was super scary, because it's like, I don't want to say the wrong thing, I don't want to make this situation worse with him. But he would have the grace for us to just receive what we gave him, and he allowed us to enter into that grief with him, and it gave us the opportunity to just love him in that.”

Flynn believes those experiences are equipping him to be a better priest one day - by teaching him how to take risks and be vulnerable, listen with openness to other people’s perspectives, and walk with others in honesty and fraternity.

“I also think it gives you a priestly heart in some sense,” he reflected.

He noted that some men, whom he had initially thought he had little in common with and might not get along with, have become some of his closest friends. By mutually sharing their hearts and forming an authentic friendship, he said, he’s learned to see Christ present in them in ways he might otherwise not have.

“As the year progressed, and as you hear more about other guys' stories or what's going on in their life, I think you love them more deeply, and they love you more deeply.”

The experience has also made Flynn eager to celebrate the sacrament of confession as a priest.

Recognizing his own brokenness, and seeing how he is loved in the brokenness, made a powerful impression on him.

“We know that God the Father has that love for us, but sometimes I think that's hard to imagine, or hard to actually come to terms with,” he said.

“You have these guys who know every aspect of your life, pretty much every aspect of your life by the end of it, and they still love you in all of your imperfections - I think that it allows you to more fully receive the love of the Father.”

Caring for the whole person

Ruff said the feedback on the process groups has been tremendous.

“The guys at first think it's going to be weird. And by the end they say, ‘This is one of the most useful experiences I've ever had’.”

He hopes to soon start a process group for seminarians who are past their propaedeutic year. Some of the seminarians who are further along in the formation process have voiced regret that they never got a chance to participate, since the groups are so new. 

Other dioceses have also reached out, interested in the possibility of creating similar groups in their seminaries.

Ruff said he would like to see the practice grow, although he cautioned that “it does take the right person to conduct it.”

“You have to let the culture build itself up over time. If you tried to push into issues too quickly, then you'd just engender resistance,” he said.

Ruff also works with formators at the seminary who are accompanying the men preparing for priesthood and overseeing their growth and development.

Psychologists should not be running seminaries, he clarified. But they can help formators understand what a healthy formation community looks like.

Ruff said when he first started working at the seminary, a formator approached him and said, “I have got this very important job and I don't have any training to do it. Would you work with us as formators to help us develop skills to help things go deeper, work more effectively with the guys?”

Leaders at the seminary approved the idea, so Ruff began to meet with the formators once a month.

“At the beginning, there's a tendency to want to talk about ‘that guy who's a problem.’ You know what I mean? ‘Why is that seminarian such a problem?’” he reflected.

But as time went on, formators began to shift their view, to say, “I wonder why I'm having a problem with that guy.”

“I think it's a profound distinction, where it's not ‘I’ve got to fix people,’ but ‘I'm in a relationship and I'm having trouble knowing how to manage this relationship and I'm part of that. What's my part of that?’”

Ruff said he has been impressed by the willingness of the seminarians to open their hearts in order to grow in their human capacities. 

Beyond the process groups, a few other groups have also been formed, as specific needs have arisen. 

There’s one group for seminarians who are dealing with anxiety, which the original dozen members nicknamed “12 Anxious Men.”

By the end of the first year, Ruff said, “a guy who is not in that group said to me, ‘That group has blessed our whole house. It's given us permission to have problems and to acknowledge them’.”

There’s also a “Heart of the Pure Man” group for men who want to work on developing a healthier capacity for chastity.

In addition to these groups, seminarians have access to counseling services - not just in their propaedeutic year, but throughout the entirety of formation and into their priesthood as well.

Ruff was initially brought into the seminary to offer counseling eight years ago, following a difficult period in the archdiocese, marked by a series of scandals and abuse cases.

He said he had already been working with some seminarians and priests in his own practice, and he realized the seminary would benefit from having an in-house psychologist.

Most of the men at The Saint Paul Seminary take advantage of that opportunity and come in for counseling at some point. In addition to Ruff, there are several other part-time psychologists available for counseling.

Men who are dealing with serious psychological issues are probably not at a point where they are able to enter seminary – they need to seek treatment elsewhere first.

But even a basically healthy individual may benefit from counseling, Ruff said.

Perhaps they need to heal some wounds from their family or origin. Or maybe they suffer from anxiety - a common challenge for much of the general population, from which priests and seminarians are not exempt.

In addition, Ruff said, the average age for first exposure to pornography in America today is just eight years old, and that results in a trauma that needs to be healed and understood. 

Furthermore, priests are also subject to unique pressures - such as isolation, loneliness, and administrative overwhelm - that may also contribute to mental health difficulties. 

Ruff said he has noticed a welcome shift - both among priests and the general population - in approaching mental health as an important part of the whole human person - a part that needs care and attention. 

“There used to be kind of a mantra in seminaries… keep your head down and get through. Don't draw any fire on yourself,” he reflected. “At this point, I'd say our attitude as a seminary with each seminarian is ‘If we don't know that you know what your problem is, we don't know you’.”

“We're not worried that a guy's having maybe an episode of depression or more anxiety or some compulsive behavior he's trying to manage. We worry if he's not letting us know that and not addressing it,” he said.

“But if we know about it - within bounds, [because] there has to be something clear standards about what's allowable and not in a seminary - but within bounds, we engage and work with them, and we honor the man for having the courage to step into that work instead of delaying it until something blows up after he's ordained.”

Preparing for priesthood

Ruff hopes that both the access to counseling and the experience of the process groups during formation will help the seminarians beyond seminary and into their priesthood.

He hopes that the men will go on to form fraternal groups throughout their priesthoods, recognizing that vulnerability, community, and support are essential for human flourishing.

Deepening these human capacities also helps the men to live more deeply spiritually, Ruff said.

“I get to really be known. I get to experience even being loved in parts of me that are quite difficult.”

He also thinks it will help prepare the men to be more effective as pastors, responding to the needs of their people and avoiding the tendency to over-spiritualize the psychological side of the human person.

“I think it develops an awareness of a universal human need and gets rid of the idea - which is not a Catholic idea at all - of self-sufficiency,” he said.

All of the seminarians who spoke with The Pillar said their process groups opted to continue meeting after the propaedeutic year was over.

Their meetings are unofficial, and Ruff is no longer present to lead the meetings or mediate conflict. But the men agreed that they benefited from the fraternity, vulnerability, and opportunity to process the highs and lows of their lives together.

“I think really it's a way to live a receptivity, especially a posture that necessitates a vulnerability,” Anderson said.

Looking forward, all of the seminarians said they will also make an effort to prioritize fraternal relationships of vulnerability and sharing when they become priests.

“I think that's something that most, if not all of us, had pretty heavy on our hearts. We saw the beauty of it and we saw the fruits of it, and we were like, we want to continue to do this. We don't want this to go away,” Flynn said.

“I think for me, loneliness in the priesthood is one of the big fears, because you're giving up marriage, you're giving up a wife and kids, and, yeah, there's definitely some fear of loneliness. I think this was one of the things that we found that was really fruitful for combating that loneliness or having relationship.”

The Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis is home to the Companions of Christ, a fraternity of diocesan priests that live together in households and share a common life.

But even priests who don’t belong to the Companions are encouraged to be part of priestly fraternity groups in the archdiocese.

Renier said he is currently discerning whether God is calling him to join the Companions.

But he said even if he discerns against joining, he will be intentional in finding a way “to seek out that human connection with my brother priests that are going through the same human and spiritual things in their parishes, with all the sacraments and all the parish administrative stuff and living life together.”

“I want real connection, I want real relationship,” he said. “I don't want a relationship with my computer, I don't want a relationship even with a book. I don't want distraction, I want connection.”

For Anderson, the logistics are a little trickier. Anderson expects to return to the Diocese of Helena as a priest – a thousand miles away from the archdiocese where he is receiving his seminarian training.

He said he doesn’t know what a fraternal group might look like in the future for him.

But he said he desires to share his life – not just in a superficial way, but more deeply – with other priests in some capacity.

“Even if that means driving several hours or making inconvenient Zoom calls, I just think it's necessary,” he said.