The rectors of Spanish major seminaries will focus this autumn on a decisive issue for the future of the priesthood: who enters the seminary today, how to discern their vocation, and what human and spiritual conditions must be required before admitting them. Rectors and formators will meet in Madrid from October 16 to 18 to review the changes experienced over the last decade in candidates and the application of the established criteria for their formation.
The meeting, organized by the Episcopal Subcommittee for Seminaries of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE), coincides with the tenth anniversary of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, promulgated in 2016 to regulate priestly formation. The program explicitly places vocational discernment, affective maturity, and admission criteria at the center.
How have candidates changed in ten years?
One of the most significant presentations will come precisely at the end of the meeting. Juan Azcárate Casanova, vice-rector of the Asidonia-Jerez Seminary, will analyze “The Ratio Fundamentalis in the face of the generational change of the last 10 years: vocational discernment and admission criteria today.”
The approach recognizes a reality that directly affects seminaries: the young people who knock on their doors today are not necessarily the same as those who entered a decade ago. Discernment must be carried out before and during formation, attending not only to the will expressed by the candidate, but also to his capacity to assume the human, spiritual, and pastoral demands proper to the priesthood.
The Ratio Fundamentalis insists precisely that the vocation must be discerned by the Church and that the personal desire to be a priest does not in itself constitute a right to receive ordination. Admission to the seminary requires evaluating right intention, freedom, human and affective maturity, Christian life, and the aptitudes necessary for the ministry.
Affective maturity, among the priorities
The affective dimension will also occupy its own space. Priest Emilio Lavaniegos, who participated in the drafting of the Ratio, will deliver the lecture “The seminary, school of affections. The role of emotions in the seminary’s formative process according to the Ratio.”
This is not an isolated issue within the work carried out this year by the CEE. In April, the Episcopal Subcommittee for Seminaries brought together for the first time rectors of major seminaries and psychologists who collaborate in the formation of candidates for the priesthood, with the aim of studying how to integrate psychological accompaniment within the formative process.
The Church has insisted for years that human formation constitutes the necessary foundation of priestly preparation. Emotional stability, the capacity to establish mature relationships, self-mastery, and the integration of sexuality are part of the discernment of the suitability of those who aspire to the priesthood and a celibate life.
Ten years of the new Ratio
The meeting will also serve to take stock of the ten years since the promulgation of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis. Msgr. Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong, Archbishop of Xalapa (Mexico), will address its reception, the pending challenges, and future perspectives.
Patrón Wong knows the subject firsthand. Before returning to Mexico, he held responsibilities in Rome directly related to seminaries and priestly formation and participated in the process that led to the 2016 Ratio. During the days, he will also address the different stages of the formative itinerary and its orientation toward configuring the future priest with Christ.
Participants will also analyze the so-called “synthesis stage”, intended to facilitate the transition from initial seminary formation to effective incorporation into priestly ministry. Three seminaries will present their experiences in this period.
Priestly formation, in full reorganization
The latest data published by the Episcopal Conference counted 1,066 seminarians in Spanish dioceses, compared to 1,036 the previous academic year. The figure, however, groups very different diocesan realities and comes after years of decline that have led to the promotion of interdiocesan seminaries and new formulas of collaboration between dioceses.
The October meeting will therefore not be limited to commemorating the ten years of a Roman document. Rectors and formators will have to examine what candidates are arriving today, how to discern an authentic vocation, and what conditions must be met before directing a man toward the altar. At a time when every new vocation is especially valuable, scarcity does not eliminate a basic requirement of priestly formation: discerning not only how many enter the seminary, but who should remain in it.