Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests

74 | GUIDE TO ONGOING FORMATION FOR PRIESTS

“The Church has always had the duty of scrutinizing the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel.” 160 The priest who is well formed intellectually engages the contemporary world, with all its possibilities and all its faults, with calmness and poise. He has a healthy love for secular knowledge, both cultural and scientific, and cultivates an interest in social trends, public affairs, and his own intellectual passions. These are some ways that the priest can read “the signs of the times” and, as the Council taught, address them in “in the light of the Gospel.”. A wider intellectual vision also enables a priest to articulate the Catholic faith in a way that is beautiful and compelling. 161 Moreover, he can defend the truth of Catholic teaching because he has considered opposing arguments seriously, recognizing in many of them a well-intentioned desire to seek the truth. He assumes neither malice nor irrationality in those who object to Catholic doctrine. His presentation of the Gospel, in other words, satisfies the deepest longings of his people, because he has felt those long ings himself. This mature open-mindedness, shared by all great apologists through the centuries, most effectively clears away others’ intellectual obsta cles to belief and reinforces his own confidence in the truth taught by the Church. The third marker of the intellectual dimension is perhaps also the most difficult to articulate. It is an interior hunger for the truth, not as a private hobby or as an idiosyncratic and academic curiosity, but from a deep desire to know ever more about the One we love. This marker recog nizes that intellectual formation is, like the other areas of formation, not a static achievement. Knowing our Catechism is not enough, nor is profi ciency in the theological and mystical tradition. An atheist could memorize the Bible, the Catechism , and the theological masters and still not have this interior longing to know more about our beloved God. 193. THIRST FOR INTELLECTUAL GROWTH 194.

195. This final marker of formation, then, is not an intellectual goal but rather the fruit of a relationship. As the priest gives himself more

160 GS, no. 4. 161 “Since . . . human culture and the sacred sciences are making new advances, priests are urged to develop their knowledge of divine and human affairs aptly and uninterruptedly. In this way they will prepare themselves more appropriately to undertake discussions with their contemporaries.” PO, no. 19.