The Mountain Echo: Seminary life attracts students

The Mountain Echo is the campus newspaper for Mount Saint Mary's University. Mount Saint Mary's is fairly unique in being both a University and also the location of a major Seminary of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

On March 13th, the Seminary at "the Mount" opened its doors to interested students. Irina Kuchevski posted this story today. Here is a brief snippet:

Fr. Leo also discussed finding an order to prayers and the four pillars that are followed by the seminarians. The four pillars are spiritual, pastoral, human and intellectual.

A question that seemed to be on everyone's minds was how a man learns to be a parish priest. The process of becoming a parish priest requires being sent on location.

Monsignor Swetland emphasized the importance of forming priests that are well trained in the understanding of human nature. Each person gets further, beyond justice to mercy. Swetland also mentioned the process of intellectual formation that encompasses languages and philosophy. Seminarians study for as little as four years and as much as six, depending on what degree they have previously attained. Those studying for six years take two years of philosophy and four years of theology. Monsignor Swetland defined theology as, "faith seeking understanding, the study of Christ and his life and teaching."

After the lecture, the large group of over fifty students was split up and various seminarians gave students a tour of the dorm rooms and offices within the building. Each seminarian gets an individual room, with the "nicer" rooms being determined by a combination of seniority and luck.

Aside from fairly spacious rooms, the seminarians also enjoy two recreational rooms complete with large, flat screen TV's and an assortment of popular video games. Seminarians also enjoy free laundry and a convenient computer lab. An interesting aspect of the tour was a library that is still being built. Thousands of books lined every surface of a small room, with more waiting in other areas of the building. All of these books belong to Monsignor Ross.

Read the full story here.