Program of Priestly Formation (Ascension)

PPF 313

Program of Priestly Formation

educational background. Remedial help should be provided to such seminarians so that their academic deficiencies may be overcome. Such assistance should take the form of tutoring, academic advising, and counseling. Excellence in education at the college level demands access to a strong library that offers print, nonprint, and electronic resources and that is professionally staffed, as required by accrediting agencies. For men who enter the discipleship stage with a college degree, programs are encouraged to consider offering the civilly recognized bachelor in philosophy (PhB), a two-year degree program that presumes a previous bachelor’s degree (preferably in the liberal arts) but does not require a liberal arts component. Such a degree requires regional accreditation. Configuration Stage At least four full years must be dedicated to graduate theological studies. 381 Graduate theological studies require an appropriate and sound philosophical formation. Those requirements, identified in the norms on discipleship stage programs, are prerequisites for theological studies. Philosophy and theology professors in seminaries are expected to make a Profession of Faith 382 and have a mandate from the diocesan bishop or a canonical mission, dependent upon the canonical nature of the institution.

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381 See CIC, c. 250; CCEO, c. 348 §1. See also Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 154. The second and third models of the configuration stage are exceptions. 382 See CIC, c. 833, 6°. For seminaries with ecclesiastical faculties, see also Veritatis Gaudium , no. 27 §1.

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