Priests belong to the Church. They do not belong to priests. How they are to be formed does not depend on populist posts in social media.
Since priests belong to the Church, it is the right and duty of the Church to discern whether a candidate is suitable for the priesthood, to specify requirements that must be met for admission into priestly training, and requirements that must be met for
continuing in training.
Here then are excerpts from what the Church says about how her priests are to be formed:
“Since the training of students depends both on wise laws and, most of all, on qualified educators, the administrators and teachers of seminaries are to be selected from the best men, and are to be carefully prepared in sound doctrine, suitable pastoral experience and special spiritual and pedagogical training. Institutes, therefore, should be set up to attain this end” (Second Vatican Council, Decree on the Training of Priests, art. 5).
Lesson to be learnt: you don’t appoint a nine-month ordained priest to be in charge of training priests. He is simply not qualified for the job. He might have been trained to be a priest. But he is yet to acquire the maturity needed to train priests. He lacks “suitable pastoral experience”. And he lacks “pedagogical trainning”. The best that can be done is to make him understudy another formator. But putting him in charge of formation of priests when he is just a few months ordained would amount to poor judgement.
The seminary is a school. To be enrolled in any school, there are requirements to be met. One of those is academic. Here is what the Church teaches on that:
“Before beginning specifically ecclesiastical subjects, seminarians should be equipped with that humanistic and scientific training which young men in their own countries are wont to have as a foundation for higher studies [that is tertiary education]. Moreover they are to acquire a knowledge of Latin which will enable them to understand and make use of the sources of so many sciences and of the documents of the Church” (Second Vatican Council, Decree on the Training of Priests, art. 13).
What would you do if, getting to a hospital, you get to know that some doctors in that hospital did not meet the entry requirements for admission into medical school? A priest is a doctor of souls.
A priest acts in the person of Christ who is priest, prophet and king. That three-fold office corresponds to the priest’s spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation. Spiritual formation is formation in holiness. Intellectual formation is formation in intelligence. Pastoral formation is formation in administration of affairs of the Church.
Spiritual formation is necessary. But it is insufficient. Intellectual formation is necessary. But it is insufficient. Pastoral formation is necessary. But it is insufficient.
Being Catholic has to do with wholeness. Wholeness of priestly training is spiritual, intellectual and pastoral, founded on human formation that the candidate is bringing from home. It is about being formed to seek holiness, intelligence and competence, not one without the other.
Access to social media does not amount to competence in speaking on every topic.
Father Anthony Akinwale, OP
