Program of Priestly Formation 6th edition

INTELLECTUAL DIMENSION | 123

Church accords it. 357 Especially in the courses on the history of philosophy, there should be a significant treatment of St. Thomas’s thought, along with its ancient sources and its later development. The fruitful relation ship between philosophy and theology in the Christian tradition should be explored through studies in Thomistic thought as well as the thought of other great Christian theologians who were also great philosophers. These include certain Fathers of the Church, medieval Doctors, and recent Christian thinkers in the Western and Eastern traditions. 358

THEOLOGY

285. Seminarians in the discipleship stage, build on the process they began in the propaedeutic stage and engage in courses that focus on the fundamental beliefs and practices of the Catholic faith. In particular, they should concentrate on those elements of the faith that stand as a presup position for all forms of graduate theological study. Theology courses in the discipleship stage should study the themes contained in the Catechism of the Catholic Church , including courses on Catholic doctrine, liturgy and the sacraments, Catholic morality, Christian prayer, and Sacred Scripture. All seminarians should be thoroughly acquainted with the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its contents as a source for “a full, complete expo sition of Catholic doctrine” and for “the requirements of contemporary catechetical instruction.” 359 From the beginning, students should learn to relate theology to the larger mission of the Church in the public sphere. Discipleship stage study is intended as preparation for further study of theology in the configuration stage, not as a replacement for it.

357 See Optatam Totius , no. 16n36; Pastores Dabo Vobis , no. 53; Fides et Ratio , nos. 43-44; CIC, c. 251; CCEO, c. 349 §1. In articulating the mind of the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council on this point, the Congregation for Catholic Education, in its document on The Study of Philosophy in Seminaries , observed that “the repeated recommendations of the Church about the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas remain fully justified and still valid. In this philosophy the first principles of natural truth are clearly and organ ically enunciated and harmonized with revelation. Within it also is enclosed that creative dynamism which, as biographers attest, marked the teaching of St. Thomas and which must also characterize the teaching of those who desire to follow his footsteps in a continual and renewed synthesizing of the valid conclusions received from tradition with new conquests of human thought.” “Philosophy in Seminaries,” Origins 1, no. 39 (March 16, 1972): 659. 358 See Fides et Ratio , no. 74. 359 St. John Paul II, Laetamur Magnopere ( In which the Latin Typical Edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church Is Approved and Promulgated ), in Catechism of the Catholic Church .