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A new report highlights the growing mental health challenges that seminarians face and the need for better psychological care in seminaries. The report, from the University of Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, also calls for bishops to focus on the quality of seminarians, rather than the number of men in seminary formation for their dioceses.
Theological College seminary campus, Washington, DC. Credit: ajay_suresh/wikimedia. CC BY SA 4.0The report indicates that psychologists see a deficiency in the use and implementation of psychological resources in seminary formation and want to see greater collaboration between seminary formators and psychological staff, and flagged a “startling disconnect” between formations and clinical professionals over the sexual maturity of new students.
The report proposes concrete ways for formators to address the growing mental health needs of seminarians today along with methods to better evaluate their worthiness for ordination.
Released this week, the report – “Do You Know Them to be Worthy?” – builds on 2025 research on the use of psychological services in seminary formation, conducted by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.
Data gathered by CARA was used by the McGrath Institute as the basis for conversations and presentations at a September 2025 conference on
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