Program of Priestly Formation (Ascension)

PPF 355

Intellectual Dimension

by the Magisterium to the theme of social communications, and the promising area of evangelization found in the ‘new media,’ Seminaries must develop a specific awareness in seminarians in this regard.” 422 Theological formation in seminaries must clearly respect traditional doctrinal formulations of the faith while recognizing contemporary modes of theological expression and explanation that accord with the doctrine of the faith. Contemporary expressions are always to be presented with due deference for the Tradition and in continuity with it. 423 Theological education for the priesthood should resist any tendency to reduce theology to a merely historical, sociological investigation or to a comparative study of religions. The entire academic program should be taught in such a way that it makes seminarians aware that they have a responsibility to continue their theological and pastoral education after ordination. 424 The theological curriculum, in both its planning and its execution, should address the unique needs of a multicultural society, which entails not only the study of the Spanish language and Hispanic cultures, but also direction regarding such matters as approved Marian apparitions and the lives of those Americans who have been canonized or beatified. 425 Seminaries should offer resources for attaining proficiency in pastorally appropriate languages. 426 422 Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 182; see CIC, c. 666. 423 Pope Benedict XVI provides a helpful principle regarding contemporary expressions of the faith: “On the one hand, there is an interpretation that I would call ‘a hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture’; it has frequently availed itself of the sympathies of the mass media, and also one trend of modern theology. On the other, there is the ‘hermeneutic of reform,’ of renewal in the continuity of the one subject-Church which the Lord has given to us. She is a subject which increases in time and develops, yet always remaining the same, the one subject of the journeying People of God.” Address to the Roman Curia Offering Them Christmas Greetings, December 22, 2005, www.vatican.va/content/ benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2005/december/documents/hf_ben_xvi_spe_20051222_roman-curia.html. 424 See Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 56. 425 See Ratio Fundamentalis , no. 157. 426 See USCCB, Encuentro and Mission: A Renewed Pastoral Framework for Hispanic Ministry (Washington, DC: USCCB, 2002), 55.

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