TAGAYTAY CITY, Philippines (UCAN) -- In an effort to help Philippine priests with difficulties, an American clinical psychologist priest traveled for 12 months from island to island listening to their confessions.

Servants of the Paraclete Father Peter Lechner told UCA News on Aug. 15, "I spent all of 1995 traveling around the country" at the request of Philippine Church officials. He was speaking during the inauguration of John Mary Vianney-Galilee Development and Retreat Center for priests in Tagaytay City, 55 kilometers southeast of Manila in Cavite province.

"I heard many confessions of priests that year," Father Lechner recalled. From such encounters and later contacts with clergy members, the 67-year-old American confirmed that "priests need assistance for a number of reasons."

He stressed that "addiction," which another program in the country focuses on, "plays a big part" in priests' problems, "but it is not the only cause." Other causes, he said, include "burnout, unresolved issues during formative years, family experiences and organic conditions."

He further explained that changes in "brain chemistry" and other biological processes "lead to depression, anxiety and uncontrolled anger," so the "host of possible causes" requires people assisting priests "to keep an open mind."

In 1995, Monsignor Jose Bernardo, Jr., then head of Manila archdiocese's clergy-renewal program, invited Father Lechner to launch an Assist Ministry in the Philippines. The psychologist did similar work with his own order's priests in the United States since 1982, when he began doctoral studies in clinical psychology at St. Louis University in Missouri, United States. He then was head of his order's Center for Renewal, in Dittmer town, Missouri.

A priest of Boston archdiocese, the late Father Gerald Fitzgerald, founded the order in 1947 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, "to serve the needs of priests and Religious experiencing difficulties in their lives and ministry."

Monsignor Bernardo later commissioned Father Lechner to train local priests who were counseling their confreres.

At the National Consultation of the Clergy in 1996, Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of Cebu, then serving as chairperson of the Episcopal Commission on Clergy, proposed the Assist program. It involved a month-long seminar for priests on caring for priests with special needs. By 1997, 103 diocesan and Religious priests completed the seminar run by Father Lechner and his staff.

Father Lechner said "65-70 percent" of bishops heading the 86 Church jurisdictions in the Philippines "participated" by sending one or two priests from their dioceses for training. In July 1998, his staff of 15 gave a five-day seminar to the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP).

The CBCP also supported a one-year Assist directors' course for 16 diocesan and Religious priests at St. Louis University in Baguio City, 205 kilometers northwest of Manila. Participants volunteered to train as staff members for the three-month Assisted Intensive Renewal Program (AIR) for troubled priests.

Father Lechner explained that two "categories" of trainees were involved. Dioceses sent official delegates, such as a vicar for clergy or someone officially responsible for dealing with troubled priests. The diocese's other participant was a priest confreres chose for approachability.

Assist Ministry has since developed priest-renewal programs in ministry and for formators. One who took part in the training went so far as to admit in a homily, "I learned that my anger has been an addiction."

Nontheless, some Church leaders never get involved in such programs. One example is Archbishop Oscar Cruz of Lingayen-Dagupan, who told UCA News he believes psychotherapy cannot "cure impaired personality constructs."

Even so, the CBCP clergy commission built the Vianney-Galilee Center to host Assist programs. Cardinal Gaudencio Rosales of Manila, Episcopal Commission on Clergy chairman, told UCA News at its inauguration that the center awaits a priest staffer interning in psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, and another learning about addiction at St. Louis University.

At the end of inaugural Mass, Cardinal Rosales thanked Father Lechner for his direction in development and training. Father Lechner, 67, was based in Rome from 1970-1982, and began serving as his order's superior in 1999.

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