Ordination Is Symbol of Faith--and Change

In the humble stucco church of St. Raphael in South-Central Los Angeles, a bishop laid his hands on Paul Henson’s head in an ancient ritual complete with sacred oil, promises of obedience and prayers of consecration.

With that, Henson became both a priest and a symbol Saturday.

His journey represented a joyful affirmation of faith to a scandal-plagued Roman Catholic Church, new vitality to an aging priesthood and pride to his fellow Latinos, who constitute 70% of the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s 5 million Catholics.

It also offered a glimpse into the radical changes that his Carmelite religious order has made to produce a healthy priest--changes with implications for Catholic leaders struggling to respond to mounting cases of priestly abuse.

The worldwide Carmelite order, founded nearly eight centuries ago in Israel, was one of the earliest religious organizations to require rigorous psychological screening and regular therapy during the order’s intense, seven-year formation process.

Many Catholics hope the nation’s bishops will call for similar features throughout the American church when they meet in Dallas later this month to discuss solutions to the sex abuse scandal.

The weight of his ordination was not lost on Henson, a 38-year-old Los Angeles native and second-generation Mexican American who will celebrate his first Mass at St. Raphael today.

“I’m getting ordained at one of the worst times, one of the most doubtful times, when the church looks so awful,” he acknowledged over beef burritos last week. But, he said, “I love the church. I love the fact that our church is an instrument of God’s love and caring for people, and I desire to be part of it.”

The ordination featured solemn rituals and lively folk music from the church youth choir. The bilingual ceremony, with gospel spirituals and mariachi music, reflected St. Raphael’s African American and Latino mixture.

In the ordination’s high point, Henson prostrated himself on the floor, then rose--symbolizing the death of his former life and rebirth into a new priestly service. Then he put on his gold and cream vestments and received his chalice and paten as the congregation applauded.

Henson presents himself not as an icon of saintliness but as a fully fallible man. He worries about his worthiness for ministry, the suitability of his skills, his ability to remain faithful to his vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

Unlike earlier generations of priests who began training in hermetically sealed seminaries, sometimes as teenagers--and who in some cases failed to develop the necessary emotional maturity--Henson came to his priestly call with rich life experiences.

Raised in Pico Rivera, the trim man with lively eyes and a gregarious manner lost his mother to drugs at age 1 and never met his father until three years ago. He was raised by his great-aunt, a devout Catholic who roused him at 6 a.m. for daily Mass and compelled him to sit, squirming, through nightly recitations of the Rosary before a statue of Our Lady of Fatima.

He was a mischievous boy who dumped his dog’s droppings in the neighbor’s yard but was always, Henson says, respectful of his religion. The priests who surrounded him from boyhood were nothing but a positive presence.

There was Father Madrigal at his hometown church of St. Mariana de Paredes, who invited him along on sick calls to homes and hospitals; there were the trips to Disneyland and Big Sur with other priests throughout his life. Never did anyone ever do anything inappropriate, he says.

But it was the two recruiters from the local high school seminary who turned his head when he was in elementary school. Sharp in their black pants and blazers, the priests inspired Henson, who recalls thinking: “I want to be just like them.”

It would be nearly 15 years, however, before he finally entered the Carmelite order in 1995 at 30. In between, he earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy at the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, then fell in love with a woman and moved away from religion.

He seemed headed to fulfill his dreams of a married life--he a teacher, she a photographer--with beautiful children, a two-car garage and a sprawling ranch reminiscent of the rural Mexican village life that his great-aunt frequently spoke about.

Henson partied with friends, drinking beer and hanging out. He vacationed in Acapulco and Puerto Vallarta. He launched a career as an elementary and high school teacher.

But the call to priesthood, he says, continued to creep into his mind, sometimes stealthily at night while he lay in bed or during daytime walks. Never a thunderous bolt from the heavens, the thought would tickle him, softly but persistently. Priesthood. He says the word would just pop into his head.

After his romantic relationship fell apart, Henson decided he needed to explore the summons.

“I did everything possible for this to die out and it just never did,” he said. “I can see why they call it a call from God.”

To enter the Carmelite seminary, Henson underwent a rigorous screening involving letters of recommendation, three interviews and psychological tests--a process that results in the majority of applicants being rejected today, according to Father Tracy O’Sullivan, who headed the Carmelite seminary in Washington, D.C., from 1990 to 1994, when he was transferred to St. Raphael.

Some candidates also are screened out midway through the seminary training process; O’Sullivan says he refused to allow some men to proceed to full ordination after spotting “a weirdness of interest” in the way they behaved with other people--sometimes with children.

That selectivity contrasts sharply with O’Sullivan’s own experience. The white-haired priest, who recently celebrated his 40th anniversary of service, says he merely submitted a letter of recommendation from his pastor. Being a high school football star, he was shooed in. “They were so happy I was going they didn’t ask me anything,” O’Sullivan recalled.

The stricter admission process represents just one change that the Carmelites began making three decades ago. That’s when, in the words of O’Sullivan, the seminary had to shift from “an 18th century program to 1960s USA.” As the order lost scores of priests and nuns to the sexual and political liberation movements of the times, the seminary began opening up.

During his time, O’Sullivan said, seminarians were not allowed to read newspapers, socialize in the outside world or regularly watch television. Priests were abruptly moved from that insular environment to parish ministry, often resulting in major adjustment problems.

Until the mid-1950s, psychology was shunned as a “threat to the church,” he said--especially Freudian ideas of sexual freedom.

Today, however, Henson said his priestly formation process included regular therapy to hash out painful childhood experiences, such as feelings of abandonment by his parents.

The training included group meetings with his fellow Carmelite brothers about building healthy relationships. There, Henson and others would vent whatever needed airing: why grown men in their 30s were still sometimes treated like children by seminary leaders. How to wrestle with ideas of authority and obedience. How to honestly express feelings.

And, Henson said, there were plenty of sessions on sexuality--the most difficult aspect, he added, of seminary life. A candid speaker, Henson said he often discussed everything from how to deal with sexual urges to whether affectionate feelings for the brothers would eventually turn him gay.

Through his training, Henson said, he has learned to be acutely aware of his urges and rechannel them in healthy directions. While at the seminary, he said, he “adopted” a Mexican American family and saw them a few times a week--cuddling the baby girl, dancing with the wife and downing beers with the husband to fulfill his need for intimacy and affection.

As the sex scandals began breaking earlier this year, his friends sat him down and gave him stern, loving warnings: “If I ever hear of you getting involved in any inappropriate touching,” Henson said the wife, Lupe, told him, “I’m going to cut off your hands and certain other things off too.”

Many of the Carmelites’ counseling and therapy programs were instituted by Father Quinn Connors, a nationally renowned clinical psychologist who led priestly workshops on “healthy boundaries” in Los Angeles this year and will serve as consultant to the nation’s bishops at their Dallas meeting.

Though no study on the programs has been conducted, O’Sullivan said they seem to have helped reduce the number of problem priests. He said virtually all of the Carmelite cases of sexual abuse have involved older men and offenses committed decades ago.

In March, the Carmelite order ousted the Rev. Dominic Savino, 63, as president of Crespi Carmelite High School in Encino over allegations that he sexually abused students more than two decades ago.

In another key element of the Carmelite program, would-be priests are required to spend two years as interns in a local ministry, rather than being abruptly plopped into parishes straight from the seminary. Henson served in Peru and rural northern Mexico, an experience he said solidified his commitment to the priesthood.

Once, he said, he testily told a girl who kept missing religion classes that she could not be confirmed. The pain in her eyes haunted him the entire summer he was away, he said, until he returned to Mexico in the fall and apologized.

“I was teary-eyed. I had sinned. I made this girl feel she was not part of the church,” he said. “At that moment, I decided if I’m going to be a leader I can never again make someone feel so awful about themselves. Rules are never going to take precedence over another’s desire for grace and sacraments.”

Ultimately, Henson said, he hopes to start a high school in Mexico. For the immediate future, he will complete his master’s degree in education and teach at the Encino Carmelite high school. He will join 14 other Carmelites in the Los Angeles Archdiocese, who make up a small fraction of the area’s 1,200 priests.

As one of about 400 Latino priests in the archdiocese, Henson “is a sign of the great expectations we have in the U.S. Catholic church that Hispanics, recently arrived and many generations present, will assume their rightful place” of leadership, said Father Vicente Lopez of St. Raphael. Lopez said Henson is one of relatively few American-born Latino priests.

“This is a statement,” O’Sullivan said, “that there is new life in the church.”