The nurturing of holy, healthy and humble priests requires prayers for vocations and the careful selection and training of candidates, the Congregation for Clergy has said.
Updating guidelines on preparing men for the Latin-Rite priesthood, the congregation released “The Gift of the Priestly Vocation”.
The document draws heavily on St John Paul II’s 1992 apostolic exhortation on priestly formation, as well as on the teaching of and norms issued by Benedict XVI and Pope Francis and by Vatican offices.
The text reaffirms an instruction approved by Benedict XVI in 2005, which said that: “The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practise homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture’”.
The document says that through courses in pastoral theology, the example of priests and practical experience, candidates learn that priestly ministry involves being “shepherds ‘with the smell of the sheep’, who live in their midst to bring the mercy of God to them”.
Citing lessons learned over the past 30 years from the abuse scandal, the guidelines state: “The greatest attention must be given to the theme of the protection of minors and vulnerable adults, being vigilant lest those who seek admission to a seminary or to a house of formation, or who are already petitioning to receive holy orders, have not been involved in any way with any crime or problematic behaviour in this area.”
Seminars and courses on the protection of children and vulnerable adults must be part of seminary education and the continuing education of priests, it says. And bishops must be very cautious about accepting candidates for the priesthood who have been dismissed from other seminaries.
In the end, each bishop is responsible for determining which candidate for priesthood he will ordain, but the guidelines strongly encourage bishops to accept the judgment of seminary rectors and staff who determine a candidate is unsuitable. “Experience has shown that when ordinaries have not accepted the negative judgment of the community of formators, it has been the cause of great suffering in many cases, both for the candidates themselves and for the local churches,” the document says.
Reaffirming the requirement that seminarians study Catholic social teaching, the document says the education must include a study of climate change and other environmental threats.
“Protecting the environment and caring for our common home belong fully to the Christian outlook on man and reality,” the document says. Catholic priests must be “promoters of an appropriate care for everything connected to the protection of creation”.
Pope laments ‘path of rigidity’
Priests are called to be mediators between God and God’s people; they are not God’s “intermediaries” or functionaries, who go to work to get paid or enter the priesthood for status, Pope Francis has said.
Serving as a mediator, immersing oneself in the joys and sorrows of the people is the most satisfying part of being a priest, he said. Those who are functionaries, on the other hand, seek happiness “in being noticed, in feeling like an authority”. “To make themselves important, they take the path of rigidity,” he said. “Many times, detached from the people, they have no idea what human pain is . . . Those rigid ones heap upon the faithful many things that they cannot carry. They hold a whip in their hands with the people of God: ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that.’ And many people are chased off by this rigidity.”
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