In the San Francisco Bay Area, orange-robed Buddhist monks are a common sight.
Father Vito J. Perrone wants to make the black diocesan priest garb of
the newly founded Contemplatives of St. Joseph at least as ubiquitous.
His goal is to bring a deep awareness of Catholic contemplative
spirituality to the Archdiocese of San Francisco, draw back Catholics
who have left and make new converts.
People are leaving the church and joining other religions or embracing
other philosophies because they do not know what the Catholic Church is
and what it offers for a relationship with God, he said.
“The goal of the Contemplatives of St. Joseph is to help those who enter
as priests and brothers, and those whom they serve in their active
ministry to wake up to the contemplative spiritual treasures of the
Catholic Church,” said Father Perrone.
Unusually, the Contemplatives of St. Joseph will live a mission that
unifies the active and cloistered life.
“We’re a monk Monday through
Friday and a diocesan priest Saturday and Sunday,” said Father Perrone,
with the order’s habit the garb of a diocesan priest.
His new order will “breathe with both lungs of the church,” East and
West, taking its guidance from Pope John Paul II’s pastoral letter
“Light from the East,” Father Perrone said.
Priests will embrace the
Latin and Eastern rites of the church and study the early Desert Fathers
and Orthodox spirituality.
“By living fully within the Catholic contemplative tradition at this
time in church history, as expressed by both the Eastern and Western
Church, the priests and brothers’ way of life will slowly but surely
help the Archdiocese of San Francisco to grow in contemplative
spirituality,” the 53-year-old founder said.
Father Perrone will welcome his first two postulants in the next few
weeks to the monastery located on the grounds of Mater Dolorosa Parish
in South San Francisco. The monastery was converted from a former
convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, said Father Perrone,
adding, “St. Joseph wants to be here.”
The priests will focus particularly on developing as spiritual directors
and confessors, with Father Perrone envisioning the Contemplatives of
St. Joseph priests eventually spending entire weekends hearing
confessions and giving retreats.
They are modeled on St. Joseph, who was
silent and contemplative, yet active – the foster father of Jesus and
spouse of Mary, protecting his little family and “standing against
evil,” Father Perrone said.
“This is the year for vocations,” said Father Perrone, who has room for 10 aspiring priests in his community.
Archbishop George Niederauer granted permission for the order in the
Archdiocese on May 30, 2008, the founding date of the order, Father
Perrone said.
It was a long process and the order remains in an
exploratory stage.
If vocations and support come, then the order is the
will of God, Father Perrone and Auxiliary Bishop William Justice said.
Bishop Justice called Father Perrone an “essentially holy” man.
For decades, Father Perrone yearned for life as a cloistered monk. A
spiritual searcher, he moved from North Dakota to the Bay Area in 1982
for a master’s degree from the Franciscan School of Theology and was
ordained a priest in the archdiocese in 2001. He served at Immaculate
Heart of Mary and St. Cecilia parishes.
Although he spent most vacations on retreat at monasteries around the
U.S., Father Perrone said he never heard a “complete yes” from God the
way he had heard God call him to the priesthood of the Archdiocese of
San Francisco.
Then, six years ago, a blizzard left Father Perrone alone in the famous
St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal in Montreal, an unusual occurrence
because the Catholic basilica is a popular tourist destination and
always crowded with visitors, Father Perrone said.
“The progress of a
whole lifetime came to a head,” Father Perrone said. “For an hour and a
half I was the only one there…just like that, this insight came to me,
‘start something new.’”
Father Perrone spent a year praying about what the St. Joseph’s Oratory
experience meant. He eventually came to the idea of the Contemplatives
of St. Joseph and presented it to Archbishop Niederauer.
For another
year the two prayed about the concept.
Then, the archbishop told Father
Perrone to test the concept by putting together the logistics,
consulting with others and continuing to discern.
The process of
discernment took another two years, he said.
“I had to search my own
soul to see if I had what it takes to be the person to get this
rolling,” Father Perrone said.
As the only order of contemplative men in the archdiocese, the
Contemplatives of St. Joseph will pray for all the bishops, priests and
people and hope by their prayer and example to attract vocations to the
priesthood of the archdiocese as well as to the order, Father Perrone
said.
With a half-million Catholics in the archdiocese, there are many who
seek spiritual direction that will now be able to turn to the new order,
Father Perrone said.
“A holistic presentation of contemplation will
resonate with the modern seeker who is ambivalent and hesitant about
entering more fully into the life of the church,” he said.
“We pray
there will be many more converts to the Catholic faith.”
SIC: CSF/USA