After 10 years as rector, Father Becker reflects on SJV tenure, looks to book, parish life

Father Michael Becker, rector the last 10 years at St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, said that as he prepares to leave the seminary at the end of this academic year, he feels most proud of the seminarians he strove to lead.

“I’m most proud of the men, the seminarians who have come through, and how they have challenged themselves to grow in their spiritual life and mission of evangelization and discipleship,” Father Becker told The Catholic Spirit after Archbishop Bernard Hebda announced Nov. 17 that the priest would be leaving in May. A search committee will work to find a successor who will begin next summer.

Archbishop Hebda praised Father Becker’s work at the seminary, and his championing of vocations wherever he serves.

“Father Becker has encouraged and inspired priestly vocations in each of his assignments,” the archbishop said in a statement. “His devotion to our college seminarians at SJV has been remarkable. As rector, he has always had my complete confidence and the support of our sending bishops throughout the country.”

Father Becker, 55, said he began to wonder if it might be time to find a younger rector a couple of years ago, when he stopped playing basketball and Frisbee football with the seminarians because if he got “nicked up” it could be a slow healing process.

Now, the time feels right, Father Becker said, adding that he will enter a six-month sabbatical to finish a book on Scripture and by Jan. 1, 2022, he expects to lead a parish again in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Before his rector assignment, Father Becker was parochial vicar of St. John the Baptist in New Brighton and then pastor of St. Michael in St. Michael.

“I feel like the cup is getting filled to its full measure,” he said. “I think I’ve done a good job of pointing out the ideal and pointing men to the fork in the road, where they can strive to be a saint, to fulfill God’s will, to be chaste and charitable, obedient, joyful and prayerful.”

The fork in the road includes men who decide to further their studies toward the priesthood, and those who choose another vocation, such as marriage, Father Becker said.

“About 200 men in my tenure have gone on to be ordained,” he said. “I rejoice in that. Others go on to marriage, to be doctors, lawyers, electricians and teachers. I know they will lay down their lives for their wives and kids.”

Father Ryan Adorjan, who graduated from SJV in 2014 and was ordained in 2018 for the Diocese of Joliet, Illinois, said in a news release about the announcement that Father Becker had a profound impact on him.

“Father Becker saw something beautiful in me and pushed me to see it myself,” he said. “He taught me that I am loved by God. Everything about who I am as a priest is rooted in that truth taught by Father Becker. He is one of the best men I have ever met.”

Current enrollment at SJV is 105 seminarians from 18 dioceses, Father Becker said. The tone he has tried to set: “That it would be a community of love and formation, not first and foremost an institution of evaluation.”

To that end, efforts to build fraternity include four-member faith sharing groups among the seminarians and regular gatherings among men with others from their own dioceses, as well as men who live together on the different floors of the SJV residence, located on the northwest corner of the University of St. Thomas campus in St. Paul.

Traditions include the seminarians holding grand and fun celebrations when a new pope is named, including most recently Pope Francis, when men mounted the rooftops waving flags and cheering, Father Becker said.

A “spiritual mothers” group of about 100 women from around the country pray for and support the seminarians, an initiative of Father Becker’s predecessor, the late Father William Baer, that took off with Father Becker’s strong support, said Barbara Dries, a member of the Cathedral of St. Paul, longtime SJV supporter and the group’s volunteer coordinator.

“It was wonderful the way he embraced the idea of the spiritual mothers,” and began a tradition of twice-a-year gatherings at the seminary for the group to pray together and visit with the men, Dries told The Catholic Spirit. “He is just very welcoming.”

Father Jonathan Kelly, a formator and spiritual director for the past seven years at the seminary, told The Catholic Spirit that Father Becker has brought a lightness and freedom to the serious work of discernment that helps free seminarians to be themselves and encounter Christ.

“One thing our seminarians appreciate about Father Becker is he sets an environment with a lightness of heart. He has a certain freedom that sets the men free to hear and encounter the Lord, and to let go of any kind of expectations of anyone but God,” Father Kelly said.

Recent challenges at the seminary, Father Becker said, include the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone had to leave St. Thomas’ campus in mid-March and continue their learning online, before returning to the seminary this fall. But thus far, only two seminarians have contracted the virus. They have quarantined and returned to full health by isolating in a first-floor guest room, Father Becker said. They continued their learning online while resting, being served meals and receiving daily Eucharist.

Asked about other accomplishments during his time as rector, Father Becker credited others, including the University of St. Thomas, where SJV men receive their undergraduate education. In cooperation with the university’s Department of Catholic Studies, Father Becker secured a study-abroad residence for seminarians at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome. In addition, he established mission trips to India, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. Under his watch, events to raise money for the seminary have flourished, including the annual Vianney Cup golf tournament and Spring Mass and May Crowning.

“These are all partnerships,” Father Becker said. “That’s not just me.”

Ordained in 1999, Father Becker has served the seminary for more than half of his 21 years as a priest, since his assignment as a formator in 2009. He looks forward to returning to parish life, he said, and ministries such as a Catholic school, youth groups and adult faith formation.

“I love family life,” Father Becker said. “I love the variety of ministries.”

But first, he has a book on Scripture to finish in the time Archbishop Hebda has granted for a sabbatical. Written for a general audience with a working title “To Fulfill All Righteousness,” it will emphasize ways God has done that in the lives of major figures in the Bible, from Moses and Elijah to the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph and St. Paul.

Explaining that he feels called to write the book, Father Becker recounted a unique experience with a charismatic prayer group after he started work on it: A person next to him turned and said, “God has put a scroll in your hand.”

“I was starting a book. How does he know that?” Father Becker wondered.

While writing the book and then returning to serve as a pastor, he said he will be available as counsel to a new rector, but “I also want to give space to new leadership.”

And he will continue to treasure and maintain the friendship of the faculty at the seminary, as well as the seminarians he has helped guide.

“I see that as enduring,” he said.