Fishermen's Fund formed to help
finance seminarians, lay students
Robert Delaney of The Michigan Catholic
Published February 17, 2006
Kathleen McCann said she was "astounded" when she learned that many new priests ordained for the Archdiocese of Detroit were beginning their priesthood with a student loan debt hanging over their head.
"As a Catholic, I found that unbelievable. I had just assumed all their tuition was taken care of," says McCann, a member of St. Mary of the Snows Parish in Milford Township.
And then there was the further realization that some men might delay responding to a sense of being called to the priesthood – in fact, might never respond to it – because of the expense of seminary tuition.
To address the problem, McCann and Richard Dugas, a member of Christ the Redeemer Parish in Lake Orion, started the Fishermen's Fund to offer financial assistance to students at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, the seminary of the Archdiocese of Detroit.
The fund's name is inspired by Christ's words in Matthew 4:19 and Mark 1:17, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men."
The fund offers assistance not only to men studying for the priesthood, but also to men studying for the permanent diaconate, and for men and women studying for various forms of lay ecclesial ministry.
Seminarians converse during a break in class at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit. |
"We wanted to send a clear message – don't let financial need stop you from attending the seminary if you feel God's calling you," says McCann.
McCann, who is senior vice president of Soave Enterprises, and Dugas, president and chief executive officer of Pulte Homes, began discussing the problem with other Catholic business executives. "Everyone was surprised to hear that we don't just offer free tuition," she says.
Undergraduate tuition runs $245 per credit hour a semester for a seminarian at SHMS. Graduate-student seminarians do get their tuition covered by the archdiocese – as has been the case since Cardinal Edmund C. Szoka was archbishop. But a new priest might still be on the hook for four years of undergraduate tuition.
Even those who came to the seminary after already having earned a bachelor's degree elsewhere must spend at least a year of formation at the undergraduate level before entering the graduate program.
And while some grants have been available for lay ministry students at Sacred Heart, McCann says they are inadequate. A lay person pursuing a master's degree in pastoral studies, for example, would pay tuition of graduate rates of $355 per credit hour.
Currently, at SHMS, there are more than 70 men studying for the priesthood, and more than 420 students studying to become permanent deacons or to go into lay ministry, besides the more than 1,200 men and women who come to the seminary annually for ongoing training in liturgy, religious education and pastoral work.
For those who do take on the debt in order to pursue their vocation in the Church, she says the situation is compounded by having to pay it back out of the "meager salaries earned by our shepherds and lay ministers today."
"We're going to help fix this. We want to ensure that no one's vocation is hindered or delayed, or otherwise impeded for lack of financial support," she adds.
Since establishing the fund, McCann and Dugas have "quietly gotten the word out," and have raised more than $600,000, but she says they are hoping it will receive generous support from the wider Catholic community now they are beginning to more vigorously advertise and promote it.
"There are vocations out there, and we just have to figure out how to support them," McCann adds.
To learn more about the Fishermen's Fund, call (313) 883-8779 or e-mail fishermensfund@shms.edu.
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