Milwaukee Catholic Herald

Fr. Witczak to teach at Catholic University

Rector saw Saint Francis Seminary through
various challenges, transitions

By Brian T. Olszewski
Catholic Herald Staff

After more than 24 years at Saint Francis Seminary, as a professor, vice rector and rector, Fr. Michael Witczak, pictured in the seminary’s Christ the King Chapel, is joining the faculty of The Catholic University of America. He will be an assistant professor in the university’s School of Theology and Religious Studies. (Catholic Herald photo by Sam Lucero)

ST. FRANCIS — Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan wasn’t surprised that The Catholic University of America was interested in adding Fr. Michael Witczak to its faculty.

“It’s a tribute to the Mike Witczak years at Saint Francis de Sales Seminary that he came to the attention of national scholars,” the archbishop said. “At heart, he’s a teacher, a scholar, and theologian.”

Come fall, Fr. Witczak, who holds a doctorate in sacred liturgy from the Pontifical Institute of Santa Anselma, will be an assistant professor in CUA’s School of Theology and Religious Studies where he will teach a course for seminarians on the sacraments of initiation, and a graduate course on Eucharist.

Ordained in 1977, the Shorewood native has been at Saint Francis Seminary since 1983, first as a faculty member, then as vice rector from 1997-2002, and since Jan. 1, 2002 and through next month, as rector.

Within weeks after becoming rector, he entered into what he termed “a very challenging time” — a six-month period when revelations of clergy sexual abuse of minors became daily, international news.

“Emotionally, it was really very difficult. I kind of felt like a punching bag emotionally,” Fr. Witczak said. “Every time you read something about a brother priest it cast dispersions on all of us; we were all painted with the same brush.”

Noting the “betrayal” so many felt, Fr. Witczak said he had to deal with what he, seminarians, lay students, faculty, administration and staff were feeling.

“We were betrayed by people who were brothers. All of us felt betrayed. We were feeling what the press was doing was an attack on us, too. It was an emotional rollercoaster,” he said. “I felt my responsibility as rector was to help students in particular, but all of us, to figure out what this meant and how to navigate it and to learn from it.”

One of the things the seminary did, according to Fr. Witczak, was examine its admission criteria and procedures to ensure as much as possible that it did not admit men who had a proclivity for sexually abusing minors.

Referring to the “good responses” from audits of the seminary’s work in this area, Fr. Witczak said, “Our admission procedures and formation program are good, realistic and take seriously the trust people are placing in us.”

Despite the challenges that arose due to the revelations of clergy sexual abuse, Fr. Witczak has seen enrollment at Saint Francis Seminary begin to increase. He attributes that interest in priesthood to at least two factors.

“Partly it’s the legacy of Pope John Paul II — the fact that he was just so influential for people,” he said. “He provided a real model of priesthood. He was a spokesman for the church that was very attractive.”

Fr. Witczak said the increase can also be attributed to “a generational shift.”

“The generation coming up right now is attracted to priesthood. They are looking for something to die for, something that is so important it is worth spending their life on,” he said. “Priesthood, precisely because it involves celibacy and is so countercultural in so many ways is attractive to young people coming up today.”

For the 2007-2008 academic year, there will be more than 40 seminarians, including eight in college, studying for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

Two of the matters that Fr. Witczak faced during his tenure were intertwined — finances and the discontinuation of seminarians’ academic formation.

“I regret that we weren’t able to make better inroads in our development efforts in the time I was here. Would that have changed things? I don’t know. All you can do is live reality,” he said. “As it turns out, this is all anyone can do, your job as a leader is to help the people you’re responsible for negotiate the reality that they have to live. So, I tried to do that the best I could. I tried to direct the process as best I could, participate in it, make sure the voice of the seminary was heard, and yet, when the archbishop announced the decision 13 months ago, my job was to make it work.”

The cost of educating and housing a seminarian for a year is close to $50,000. The cost of operating the infrastructure is $1.5 million annually.

“It’s similar to what parishes go through with their schools. A parish gives X amount of money to its school, but the school has to take responsibility for the rest,” Fr. Witczak said.

He added that the seminary’s board of trustees’ finance committee has been trying to find a “number of ways to fill the gap between what the seminary receives from the Catholic Stewardship Appeal and what we earn on our own.”

Fr. Witczak paused as he pondered his regret that the seminary had to close its academic program.

“I do think it’s been a loss that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee didn’t have the number of candidates and the financial resources to keep going as a free-standing seminary,” he said.

He explained that “a lot of people spent a lot of time and energy over the last three years trying to make it work. No matter how we diced up the numbers and the money, it never fit what the archdiocese was able to live with.”

Fr. Witczak praised the process in which the seminary and Sacred Heart Seminary, Hales Corners, had engaged, with the latter assuming the academic formation of archdiocesan seminarians.

“I think that our collaboration with Sacred Heart Seminary is going to produce wonderful candidates and it has forced us to think about things in a different kind of way,” he said. “Whenever there is a major change, whenever you have to stop doing something you’ve been doing and start doing something in a new way, you learn a lot and discover new ways of doing things, and sometimes you discover they’re better.”

Something else Fr. Witczak said he discovered was the value of Sacred Heart Seminary.

“One of the things that I came to realize was what a wonderful resource Sacred Heart is. I kick myself that in all the years I was involved with Saint Francis Seminary that we didn’t have a closer and more collaborative relationship with Sacred Heart than we did,” he said. “There are a lot of excellent people there and they have a great program and we both could have been better institutions if we would have been able to do more things together.”

Asked what advice he has given his successor, Fr. Donald Hying, currently director of formation for the seminary, Fr. Witczak said, “I told him the most important thing he can do is listen. Listen to the wisdom of the faculty, listen to students, listen to staff and obviously listen to the archbishop, but most importantly, listen to the Lord and Spirit in prayer. It’s important to have plans and goals, but it is in listening to other people and finding the wisdom in what they have to say, that how the reality of those plans will come to fruition will emerge.”