Where are vocations coming from? Among other places, the hills of California, where a small college is producing seminarians the way Fresno produces raisins:

Five alumni of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula were ordained to the priesthood this year, bringing the total number of alumni priests to 47. The college also boasts 20 graduates who are religious brothers and sisters, and an additional 35 in seminaries preparing for the priesthood.

These numbers are especially striking for a small, private college with only 2100 alumni and a maximum enrollment of 350 students.

California Catholic Daily interviewed Fr. Sebastian Walshe, a TAC graduate now belonging to the Norbertine St. Michael’s Abbey in Silverado, California. Father Walshe has been a Norbertine priest for two years.

Does everybody at Thomas Aquinas College major in theology or religious studies?

Fr. Walshe: No, there are no majors, no areas of specialization. The college follows the Great Books curriculum and the Socratic method of teaching.

Do most of Thomas Aquinas students go straight from devout Catholic families to this enclave of Catholic piety?

Fr. Walshe: Some do, but that was certainly not the case with me. I was raised Lutheran and became a convert to the Catholic faith at age thirteen.

And then you thought, “I need some serious catechism…”?

Fr. Walshe: No, I started out studying Electrical Engineering at the University of California at Irvine. But while that was job training, it wasn’t really an education. That’s why I enrolled in Thomas Aquinas. What TAC gave me was not so much “catechism,” but the conviction that faith is something that can deepen through the application of reason.

So, can you “reason” yourself into religion?

Fr. Walshe: No, I don’t think that’s true. But you can dispose yourself to be open to religious truths, and you can remove impediments to the Faith. Grace builds on nature; if your mind is well-ordered at the natural level, you can be more receptive to grace.

There are secular, non-Catholic colleges, such as St. John’s in Annapolis, where the Great Books curriculum has been helpful in spurring conversions to the Catholic faith.

Fr. Walshe: But Thomas Aquinas College is a truly Catholic milieu. One reason for the vocations from TAC is the integrity of the curriculum with the faith as it is concretely lived out.

Fr. Walshe also has some advice for other Catholic colleges. They should pay attention. He seems to know what he’s talking about.