Re-Visitation

By Fr. Wilson ( articles ) | Dec 20, 2004

VERY interesting, Diogenes.

I was in the seminary during the last round of Visitations in the mid-1980s. We did have the right to present ourselves to a member of the Visitation team if we wished.

But the Team was composed of a bishop chairman (+Friend of Shreveport) and several faculty of other progressive seminaries. It is certainly the case that observations of several of us who spoke to the spiritual life issues were not reflected in the final report of the Visitation Team. One seminarian who stopped by a Visitor in his room found him copiously typing whole paragraphs from the seminary catalogue into the Team report; when we received it, we were amused to read of the "lush green lawns which are the setting of...," presumably referring to the dead, brown wasteland surrounding the seminary.

One of the guys, having read the report, said, "That Thing reads like a description of Clairvaux under Saint Bernard." This was the Pontifical Visitation Report of... Holy Trinity Seminary, Dallas. Think about that for a moment.

Yup. Another Seminary Visitation. The New Evangelization rolls along.

Chilly Spring, eh?