Program of Priestly Formation 6th edition

70 | PROGRAM OF PRIESTLY FORMATION

goods and personal health. The Rule of Life must encourage appropriate respect for those in authority and a mature sense of obedience. The seminary should create a climate for mutual respect, commu nication, and collaboration as a contribution to the overall development of the seminarians as they interact with many other individuals and commu nities as well. Men and women mingle with seminarians in a variety of settings: personal, academic, pastoral, and ecumenical. The interaction of seminarians with seminary administrative staff and service personnel in the seminary community often reveals attitudes toward others in general. Seminarians’ ongoing contact with their own family and parish or ecclesial movement should continue to form a significant dimension of their life. “The community forms the seedbed of a priestly vocation, since the semi narian emerges from it, in order to be sent back to serve it after ordination. The seminarian to begin with, and later the priest, must have a living bond with the community.” 209 Seminarians should participate in parish activities and volunteer for service on a regular basis. The seminary community and individual seminarians should appreciate the presence of a multicultural, multiethnic, and international community within the seminary. This environment provides a mutually enriching dimension to a seminary community and reflects the realities of pastoral life awaiting seminarians. This diversity should also help semi narians develop a quality of adaptability to varied pastoral settings in their future priestly ministry. 161. 162.

THE CONTINUING EVALUATION OF SEMINARIANS

163. The continuing evaluation of seminarians is linked to their formation as well as to the Church’s responsibility to discern vocations to priesthood as a gift from God. Since formation assumes that a semi narian will be growing both in God’s grace and in his free, human response to that grace, it is important that there be a process to note the bench marks of that growth. In this way, the Church provides seminarians with

209 Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 90. The bonds between formators and seminarians and among the seminarians themselves are also important and “must be marked by a sense of fatherhood and fraternity.” Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 52.