James O'brien

Making a Priest in the ?fifties: Memoir of a Nervous Seminarian James O'brien

Currents of change were stirring in the late fifties, both in the Catholic Church and in American culture. But St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore, operated in the "old way," according to rules laid down in 1869. This humorous but candid memoir follows its clueless author through the four years of theological study, spiritual formation and pastoral training preparing him, sorta, for ordination to the Roman Catholic priesthood in l961. The book has no axes to grind, but doesn't avoid issues both then and now, including some speculation about sex and celibacy, about hierarchy, about clerical ambition (his own!) which should make the memoir relevant to contemporary readers-you!