A Rediscovery of Perennial Truths: An Interview with the Most Rev. James D. Conley, D.D., S.T.L.

Can you describe how the liberal arts — which you experienced as an undergraduate at the erstwhile Integrated Humanities Program (IHP) at the University of Kansas (KU) — brought you into the Catholic Church?

For my first year in the program, I didn’t even see a Catholic connection. It wasn’t even on my radar. My second year, I did notice there were a lot of Catholics in the program, and there were a lot of people who were entering the Church. We read the Bible as literature and had to memorize some Psalms, with the collective effect of the second year, asking, “What is Truth?” You begin to ask yourself those questions: “What do I know? What do I believe? Is there a God? Does He exist? Can we know Him? Has He revealed Himself in the world?” These were questions that the texts were all discussing. You eventually have to ask yourself if you believe in these things.

That’s what started with me, asking myself these questions while I was reading these great ideas. I was getting to know some friends who were converting, and it was through my roommate at the time that a group of us decided to take these classes being taught by a priest at the local parish. (RCIA didn’t exist yet.) Fr. Michael Moriarty, this wonderful Irish priest, was a great storyteller — witty, smart, funny, and with a great gift of the gab. All these college students would end up going to these classes, mostly from the humanities program at KU. It was the 1970s — I’m sure we were sitting around in beanbag chairs with lava lamps — and he would tell these stories of faith and weave doctrine into these wonderful stories.

Did you discern your vocation there?

No, when I graduated, I had no inkling at all for any religious vocation. I had only been Catholic for a year and a half. But I loved to travel, and I had a motorcycle at the time, so I rode it across the country. A few of my friends had ended up at this Benedictine monastery in France, which became a gathering place for guys discerning vocations. You could stay there for free as long as you worked, so that was my motive. I wasn’t even thinking about a monastic vocation; I was just trying to wrap my head around being Catholic. I arrived in December of 1977 and, a couple months into it, I started thinking, “Hmm, maybe God is calling me to monastic life.”

“I never even thought that I could be called to become a diocesan priest. But then John Paul II made this appeal, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning: Maybe God is calling me to be a priest!”

In the meantime, another friend, a fellow convert, had inherited his grandmother’s farm and was raising horses. He just got married and needed help, and I needed a job, so I moved out to north-central Kansas after returning from the monastery in France in August of 1978. At that point, I felt that God was calling me to marriage, so I started dating a Catholic girl from a farm family. And I thought this was what I was going to do: become a farmer, have a big family, raise 10 kids, and I was on my way. The relationship was going well. But then it was the fall of 1979, and Pope St. John Paul II had just been elected the year before. He was making his first trip to the U.S. and visiting all the major cities, as well as a stop in Des Moines, Iowa. My friends and I piled into vans to see this new Polish pope. It was the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi, October 4, 1979. It was an outdoor Mass with some 3,000 people in attendance and, as he was wont to do, at the end of the Mass, the Holy Father made this appeal to the young men to consider the priesthood.

For me, until that point, it had been either “become a monk” or “get married.” I never even thought that I could be called to become a diocesan priest. But then John Paul II made this appeal, and it hit me like a bolt of lightning: Maybe God is calling me to be a priest!

My girlfriend actually set up the appointment with the first priest I talked to about a possible vocation. Long story short, I went down to see him, he called the Bishop, whom I then met, and I was in the seminary in January, about four months later.

What did your parents think of your entering the Church — and then becoming a priest?

My parents were not very religious, and I made the mistake of converting to the Church before telling them. Before the end of the fall semester of my junior year, I entered the Church and came home and made this announcement at Christmastime. It might have been at Christmas dinner. It went over like a lead balloon. My mom was actually happy because I had gotten my hair cut, and she could tell that I was becoming more serious minded, more mature.

But my dad was typical of that self-made, successful, post-war generation, and his first reaction was, “Well, son, I hope you know you’ve given up your freedom to think on your own. The Catholic Church is going to do all your thinking for you. The Pope is going to make all your decisions in life. And if you want to give up your freedom to think for yourself, you’re an adult now, but I just want you to know what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

By the time I went into the seminary, he had softened a bit, and as time went on, he warmed up to the Catholic Church, in the sense that he got to know some priests and a few of my seminary friends. My father always had a great respect for the KU professors, even though he was a little suspicious. After my ordination as a priest in 1985, he got to know my first pastor, Fr. Don O’Hare, and that really had a big impact on him.

After four years in the parish, I was sent to Rome to get an advanced degree in moral theology, and while I was gone in Rome, unbeknownst to me, my parents began taking RCIA. Two years later, they announced that they wanted to become Catholic and wanted me to receive them into the Church. So, I baptized and con-
firmed them and gave them their first Holy Communion. It was on a Saturday morning, my dad stepped up to the baptismal font — and this had to be an inspiration from the Holy Spirit — before I poured the water, I said, “Dad, I hope you know that, when I do this, you’re going to have to give up your freedom to think on your own, and the Catholic Church is gonna do all your thinking for you.” And he remembered that and smiled and said, “Go ahead.”

They both ended up becoming lifelong Catholics. Next to my ordination, that was probably the happiest day of my life.

In your Commencement Address, you noted that in the 1960s and 1970s, colleges were rejecting the very existence of objective truth. Is that still true? It seems that academia has since become rather dogmatic.

I look back on my own experience in the humanities program, and the philosophical error that was then at the very heart of the crisis of higher education was rejecting the idea of objective truth and objective morality. Looking at everything 50 years later, I recall how Pope Benedict XVI spoke about the “dictatorship of relativism.” I think what’s changed is that it has become a dictatorship. In other words, relativism is what we were battling years ago, the idea of “to each his own,” and “who’s to say” — whereas now, if you reject the prevalent philosophy, it’s going to be forced onto you, like a dictatorship. You can’t hold a position that’s  contrary to it. I think that’s what changed, that it’s become forced. It can’t sustain itself unless it’s forced upon you because it can’t stand up to scrutiny.

The founders of Thomas Aquinas College and John Senior at IHP all knew that well. They were prophetic. They were living deeply in the world of academia, and they were young men, and they could see where it was all heading.

You also discussed many of the connections the College has with your diocese, notably among those being Rev. Ramon Decaen (’96) — a TAC graduate who went on to become a priest in Lincoln, and who tragically died of Covid in 2021.

Yes, I was able to visit his family when I came out for your graduation! I met up with Fr. Decaen’s brother, Chris, who is a tutor on the College’s California faculty. We went with their parents and with Chris’s wife, Rose, and visited the cemetery where Fr. Decaen is buried in Santa Paula. He’s buried in a Hispanic section of the cemetery, named for Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is fitting: Fr. Decaen served the Hispanics of our diocese as the pastor of Cristo Rey Parish, which is about 99 percent Hispanic. He was beloved by the Spanish-speaking community, “Padre Ramon.”

We prayed and took pictures out at the cemetery, and then we all went out to dinner that night. I sent the pictures back to his parishioners at Cristo Rey. They still miss him and grieve his loss, even though Fr. Rafael Rodriquez is doing a wonderful job as his successor.

You have spoken bravely, both in your Commencement Address and elsewhere, about your struggle with mental health. Often, it’s difficult for believers to distinguish a mental-health issue from a spiritual one. How do you make that distinction?

It’s important to make that distinction because the two are not the same. Yet, while they are distinct, they are also related. We are spiritual beings, and grace builds upon nature. When nature is struggling in some way, the grace cannot be effective. The spiritual remedy for mental illness is not the answer. You cannot heal yourself by praying more, save for miraculous healing. But for most of us, we need to address our psychological and human sufferings in a way that’s responsive to the human struggles: psychology, counseling, even medication — there are a lot of resources and people out there who can help.

There’s a book called The Catholic Guide to Depression, by Dr. Aaron Kheriaty, and I think that’s the best resource out there from an intellectual perspective that can make that distinction between psychological and spiritual health. He goes through the great spiritual masters, like St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila, and he has a whole section on medications. He really does understand. If you are actually suffering, you should probably go see a psychologist. But if you are just wanting to know more about mental illness and the relationship between mental health and spiritual wellbeing, that’s probably the best resource.

Do you think it’s important for someone seeking mental-health care to go to a Catholic therapist?

It’s not absolutely necessary, but I would say go there first. The field of psychology is all over the place. To find someone who is trustworthy and really understands the spiritual life and the sacramental life, that’s important.

“Relativism is what we were battling years ago, the idea of ‘to each his own,’ and ‘who’s to say’ — whereas now, if you reject the prevalent philosophy, it’s going to be forced onto you, like a dictatorship.”

To what do you attribute the current resurgence in Catholic
liberal education, and what role do you think Thomas Aquinas
College plays in it?

Public education is being rapidly hijacked by erroneous ideologies, even over the last five years. So people are looking for alternatives, and they are discovering that there’s a wealth of richness in our own heritage, especially as Catholics, that for too long has been basically ignored. The homeschoolers discovered it, and now these classical academies, and the charter school movement, are discovering it, too — a rediscovery of the great legacy of Western liberal education, the tried and true. Many bishops, myself included, are experiencing a renewal of our diocesan schools through a greater emphasis on the classical liberal arts. I am very excited about this renewal in my own diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, and I am convinced this is the future of our Catholic schools.

It’s a rediscovery of perennial truths, which TAC has been doing since 1971. In the early 1970s there were only a few of these oases of sound liberal education. Now there are so many more choices for, say, parents with kids who are college age. That’s why I encourage your graduates — who have just completed this wonderful four-year education — to consider a career in education. They have great promise, great hope, and even a great responsibility.

Catholic classical schools are growing at such an exponential rate that your graduates can write their own ticket. I know there are schools and academies that, if they see you are a TAC graduate, they will hire you immediately because they know you have a grounding in the Great Books. They can’t open these upstart classical academies fast enough, and their biggest challenge is finding teachers who understand this.