Robert ANELLO. ‪Minor Setback or Major Disaster?: The Rise and Demise of Minor Seminaries in the United States, 1958-1983‬. St. Louis: ‪En Route Books & Media, 2019‬. pp. 591. $24.99 pb. ISBN 978-1-950108-62-6. Reviewed by George MANGIARACINA, Sacred Heart Seminary and School of Theology, Franklin, WI 53132.

This book is about the minor seminary ’s rise in importance to its eventual decline and virtual demise. During this period there were those who supported minor seminaries as a place where young teenage boys could explore their vocation to the priesthood and those who questioned it and eventually supported its practical disappearance by 1983. One can think of it as more or less watching an airplane crash and wondering how it took place.

The book presents a fascinating story of not just what happened to the minor seminary system but that its ending need not have happened. What might have happened if bishops and religious order leaders had worked on consolidation rather than leaving it to chance. What might have happened had priests and religious sisters not lost faith in their own vocation choices when they were younger? What might have happened if parents, especially mothers had continued to encourage their sons to try out a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. What might have happened if the identity of the priest had been better defined after Vatican II?

The book ’s strongest point is that it answers the question: What happened to the minor seminaries and why did they disappear? I was surprised to see that even before Vatican II, priests and religious sisters were questioning the value of minor seminaries, and implicitly at least, discouraging young men from entering into them. Then too, after the Second Vatican Council, with the publication of Humanae Vitae, mothers were also not supporting their sons to enter minor seminary. All in all, the overall picture that came to me was that Catholics began to lose faith in the priesthood becoming a lifetime decision in their young men, and even in the Church as an institution from which to center their lives.

The second great point of this book, and the part that takes up the greatest part of its development is the various ways minor seminaries struggled to survive. The value of reviewing all these is that they are still being explored today for college and theologate seminaries. There is still a bit of uncertainty on whether or not a seminarian needs time and space (and how much) to hear within himself the calling to become a priest, and how is he to develop himself in response to this calling.

It is a long book. It takes time and patience to read it through. Thus, it belies its origin as a doctoral dissertation. The history would have been more enjoyable if the author had interjected his own feelings on where he stood on the developments that took place in this decline and fall of the minor seminaries. I was able to make out how he might have felt by the frequency he seemed to favor one point of view over another, but it is not until the end when he gives his final thoughts that I knew where he stood, namely that he wished that minor seminaries become part of the overall portfolio of options for preparing men for the priesthood. In other words, the shortage of men for the priesthood would not have to be so sever if the Catholic Church in the United States would have a more comprehensive program for teenagers, college and graduate age men, and those between 35 and 65 years old.

In the end, there is the question of who will benefit from reading this book. Certainly, Vocation Directors (both diocesan and religious), and the same for diocesan and religious formators. Another group that would benefit from reading the book would be church historians, as well as those involved in culture and religious studies. Finally, the author gives further lines of investigation near the end of his book.

          Overall, the author is to be commended for his is very careful, patient, and thorough research on the question: why did the minor seminaries decline and basically ceased to exist. He is also to be commended for questioning why this happened, and how it need not have happened. Until I read this book I had accepted the thesis that it was inevitable, but now, having read this book, I see that the demise of the seminaries could have been forestalled with more creative thinking in the lines of consolidation, a better definition of the identity of the priest and faith in a young man hearing his calling to the priesthood at an early period of his life.

Furthermore, the author is to be commended for writing a book that he had few if any models from which to draw. I can see that this was not an easy task, but now that he has done so, it will be easier for others to follow. Fortunately, he has also supplied a fairly robust index and table of contents to make it easier to focus on matters of particular concern whether it be the history of minor seminaries, formation issues, and the like.