Nouwen’s Formation
Courtesy of Laurent Nouwen. Used with permission.
Nouwen was educated by the Jesuits at the Aloysius Gymnasium at The Hague. He decided that he would not become a Jesuit priest because it required too much study. After secondary school he took one year in the minor seminary in Apeldoorn, where his uncle, Toon, was president. He studied for six years in the major seminary in Rijsenburg/Driebergen and was ordained a priest for the diocese of Utrecht on July 21st, 1957, by Archbishop Bernard Alfrink.
Nouwen was interested in pastoral ministry, and he knew that the comparatively new discipline of psychology was important despite the fact that Church circles felt it undermined faith. Immediately after ordination, Nouwen was granted further study in psychology at the University of Nijmegen, where he spent six years. During this time he also worked briefly as a pastor in the mines, a chaplain in the army, and a chaplain on the Holland-America Line, accompanying immigrants to the United States. He graduated as a psychologist in 1963.
