A former editor of the Worcester Business Journal, Lawrence Maloney, has published a new fiction book, “Unto the Altar of God”.
Taking place in the 1960s, when a Catholic minor seminary has virtually disappeared, the passage explores the contrast of a rigid, rule-laden environment of the seminary with fascination of the outside world, and the exchange between a young seminarian’s growing attraction to a girl who is also interested in pursuing religious life as a nun.
Since late 1967, more than 130 high school seminaries have operated in the U.S., with more than 20,000 students, according to the Washington-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. In 2021, only two high-school boarding seminaries still functioned in the country.
“Nowadays, the idea of boys entering a seminary right after eighth grade may seem completely absurd,” said Maloney, a former deputy editor of U.S. News & World Report, “but that was accepted practice through much of the 20th century. The philosophy of religious orders and virtually every Catholic diocese was that the seminary environment, isolated from worldly distraction, would enhance a young person’s ability to focus on the lofty goal of clerical life.”
