Report highlights ‘startling disconnect’ between seminary formators, psychological experts
“Providing access to appropriate psychotherapy within the formation process more fully serves the seminarian.”
A new report highlights the growing mental health challenges that seminarians face and the need for better psychological care in seminaries. The report, from the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, also calls for bishops to focus on the quality of seminarians, rather than the number of men in seminary formation for their dioceses.
The report indicates that psychologists see a deficiency in the use and implementation of psychological resources in seminary formation and want to see greater collaboration between seminary formators and psychological staff, and flagged a “startling disconnect” between formations and clinical professionals over the sexual maturity of new students.
The report proposes concrete ways for formators to address the growing mental health needs of seminarians today along with methods to better evaluate their worthiness for ordination.
Released this week, the report – “Do You Know Them to be Worthy?” – builds on 2025 research on the use of psychological services in seminary formation, conducted by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Data gathered by CARA was used by the McGrath Institute as the basis for conversations and presentations at a September 2025 conference on the subject and the subsequent report published this week.
The CARA data, the McGrath report highlighted, “unfortunately lent support for the broad perception among seminary formators that too many bishops are still willing to prioritize numbers over quality when it comes to advancing candidates to ordination.”
“For the good of all involved, the seminarian included, we must move beyond a fixation on numbers and insist on the quality of the men being called,” the report argued.
Greater collaboration
As part of ensuring this quality, seminaries must turn to psychological services to better prepare men for the priesthood, the report concluded.
Psychological evaluations have long been part of the seminary application process. But the report found that those have been frequently underutilized and misunderstood by seminary formators.
“The psychological evaluation has been falsely seen as something that the applicant passes or fails. This check- the-box mentality has been common among vocation directors and seminary rectors,” the report stated.
Today, researchers argued, there is a greater need for more intentional and thorough psychological treatment and assessment of seminarians, including offering regular therapy and counseling to seminarians and conducting thorough psychological assessments of seminarians at least twice during their formation.
Additionally, there needs to be greater dialogue between the internal and external forums in seminary formation, researchers argued. Citing previous research, the study noted that “23% of recently ordained priests admitted that, when in seminary, they concealed realities about themselves that “I should have made known to my formators in the external forum.”
New psychological problems
Offering proper psychological care and assessment, the report found, is becoming more pressing as men are entering seminary with more and more psychological needs. The report noted that overall “the mental health needs of society are on the increase.”
The report noted that the USCCB’s Program for Priestly Formation recognizes the importance of psychology in the formation of priests. However, the report criticized PPF 6’s language of cautioning against “extensive psychotherapy” or “in-depth therapy.” It said the PPF does not have clear definitions for these terms and recommended that psychologists be consulted to define those terms and standards.
Citing studies conducted by the American Psychological Association, the report noted that 54% of adults experience loneliness, 66% of adults report experiencing one physical symptom of stress and 69% report needing more emotional support than they have previously received.
Additionally, the study noted the changing psychosexual behavior of seminary applicants and seminarians writing, “as seminary applicants become increasingly adept with technology, the range and complexity of sexual experiences and behaviors continue to expand. Behaviors once relatively uncommon have, in many cases, become more prevalent.”
There is “a startling disconnect between the confidence expressed by bishops, vocation directors, rectors and formators and the lack of confidence by psychological service professionals when asked if they believe seminaries are adequately forming seminarians for sexual maturity,” the report stated.
The CARA report found that 85% of bishops, 84% of rectors, and 72% of vocation directors are “very confident” or “confident” in seminaries adequately forming seminarians for sexual maturity. However, only 35% of mental health professionals responded the same, only 14% responded that they were “very confident.”
Another pressing problem that the report noted was the increasing number of candidates with special needs, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), citing a recent study that found that the number of ASD 0.5 per 1000 children in the 1960-1970s (or 1 in 2000 children) to 32.2 per 1000 children in 2022 (or 1 in 31 children). Thus, more seminarians are presenting symptoms of ASD.
The CARA report found that 57% of bishops are concerned about advancing a candidate who is high functioning on the autism spectrum and 20% said this alone, would disqualify the man from being ordained.
“These considerations underscore the urgent need for further research and the development of resources necessary for candidacy assessment and for the sustained accompaniment of seminarians and newly ordained priests with ASD,” the report said.
The proposals
Researchers proposed a variety of changes to the psychological formation of seminarians.
These proposals sought to address two main areas of concern, first, the use of psychological evaluations and resources for a man’s growth. Second, proposals for addressing the growing crises of psychosexual behavior and utilizing resources to better help men address struggles with pornography and/or masturbation.
Addressing the first concern, researchers said that every seminary should have a staff psychologist and second, there needs to be increased collaboration between psychologists and the rest of the formation team.
This includes the sharing of reports and discussing a seminarian’s progress so that the seminarian, formation team, and psychologist can better understand a man’s progress and set attainable, clear formation goals.
Additionally, the paper argued for a greater sharing of information in the external forum of therapy to better allow the seminarian to disclose himself to formators and to open new resources to him.
“Given that the candidate has the obligation to disclose himself to the Church and that the Church has the right to know the man, a goal of seminary counseling/psychotherapy and spiritual direction ought to be to help the seminarian bring into the external forum those personal issues known in the internal forum which bear on his own formation and on a judgment pertaining to his suitability for Orders,” the report said.
To address the growing number of seminarians with ASD, the report argued that more resources need to be made available. However, it noted that the Church has yet to sufficiently address this concern and more research is needed.
Among the recommendations the researchers had, they shared that there needs “the development of resources necessary for candidacy assessment and for the sustained accompaniment of seminarians and newly ordained priests with ASD,” must be addressed.
In discussing sexual maturity, researchers argued that seminaries need to implement a new approach to helping men overcome pornography and/or masturbation habits. They said that the current model of a binary or reset based model to track behaviors is insufficient. These strategies, they said, can risk oversimplifying “dynamics of behavioral change” and often lead to discouragement in progress.
A better approach, both from a clinical and pastoral perspective, they said, would be to implement a “a sustained pattern of continence (absence of sexual indulgence and activity), with increasing stability, and rapid recovery from any lapses.”
Additionally, they suggested that seminaries provide more resources to men including better education on the theological and psychological understanding of chastity, access to internet filters, and the ability to participate in peer-peer or group accountability efforts.
Conversations about a man’s development in continence must, “move serenely and honestly from the internal forum to the external forum,” the report said. This will require greater consultation between formators and mental health professionals.
Researchers added that when formators address issues of sexual maturity, the intended goal cannot be to merely help a man stop a behavior but more so to, “help the seminarian achieve deeper sexual integration and understand why he might turn to pornography or masturbation as coping mechanisms for loneliness, stress, or other challenges in the celibate life.”
Finally, the report looked at the continuing question of admission of men who experience same-sex attraction. The report noted that the Vatican’s 2005 document, “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies” is clear that men who experience SSA should not be ordained.
The report noted the two terms frequently used when discussing this question — transitory same-sex attraction (T-SSA) and deep-seated same sex attraction (DS-SSA) are often misunderstood or are not applied appropriately. In interviews with professionals, researchers found that only 36% of mental health professionals agree that the Vatican’s 2005 document is helpful, while around 60% of bishops, formators and vocation directors believe that it is helpful.
A common criticism that professionals had was the lack of a clear definition of T-SSA versus DS-SSA. Currently, the distinction is based on the magnitude and expression of these tendencies: is it the same-sex attraction “deep in a person’s psyche” or “superficial and likely to change”?
The report recommended that seminaries adopt definitions being adopted by many Catholic psychologists.
These definitions distinguish the two not on expression and magnitude alone but, “also and especially in terms of temporal duration. That is, if the duration of the same-sex attractions persists for longer than five years (unless there is evidence to suggest that the issue is beginning to resolve), the diagnosis changes from transitory to deep-seated, no matter how superficial SSA may appear.”
By making psychotherapy and other psychological resources more readily available to seminarians, formators, researchers said, will help both the men in formation and the broader seminary community.
Researchers concluded that by “providing access to appropriate psychotherapy within the formation process more fully serves the seminarian, promotes genuine human freedom, and increases the likelihood of lasting growth and symptom resolution.”
I feel like there are some similarities with how technologies (television, Internet, the 24/7 news cycle) have impacted politics... 90% of the politicians of yesteryear would not survive in the modern era. In some instances, that's a great thing, but looking around it seems to cater to narcissists, liars, and ego-maniacs. Most decent people would rather say "no thank you!" to a life in the public eye. It's hard to imagine that we can realistically ask young men -- who dream of becoming a priest -- to be *more open and transparent*, especially around sexual issues, while also increasing the barriers for entrance into seminary.