Program of Priestly Formation (Ascension)

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Intellectual Dimension

they may have great expertise in a particular area and have a high level of technical training but lack a wide background. Often lacking is education in the humanities, which would enable them to study theology effectively and make pastoral connections with the lives of the people whom they will serve. b. Older men approach the seminary with considerable life experience, but they may have lost contact with formal patterns of study in school. Their age may seem to warrant that they be moved through the seminarian program quickly, or that they be given a program that has been reduced in expectations. This latter trend, however, is to be resisted. c. Men with an international background may arrive at the seminary with a limited knowledge of the English language as well as a limited understanding of US culture. These limitations present significant challenges for teaching and learning. Unless the seminarian has sufficient familiarity with language and culture, his study of theology will be severely impeded. 335 d. Men coming from a US cultural context, even though they may be young and have had exposure to the liberal arts in college, may bring with them the limitations of the culture’s understanding of the human person as well as the limitations of a philosophical milieu that is suspicious of or even rejects enduring, absolute moral values and objective truths. Unless these men are grounded in an adequate philosophical and theological anthropology, they will struggle to make sense of their theological studies and their application in pastoral practice. e. Men apply to seminary programs with backgrounds of varied religious experiences and varied levels of catechetical formation. “Intellectual formation is a part of the integral formation of the priest. Moreover, it serves his pastoral ministry and has an impact upon his human and spiritual formation, which draw rich nourishment from

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335 See Guidelines for Receiving Pastoral Ministers in the United States cited earlier in the propaedeutic stage section for more information on reception and orientation of men from international backgrounds.

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