formation

The course will be “a necessary requirement for the completion of the baccalaureate, licentiate and doctorate academic degrees,” said a press release from the university March 23.

Pope Francis created the office dedicated to safeguarding minors and vulnerable people earlier this year when he overhauled the Vicariate of Rome.

The document especially emphasizes the formation of parish Synod Evangelization Teams that in successive years will help establish parish-based small groups, find ways to teach about the Mass while enhancing liturgies and focusing on the Eucharist and assist parents in forming their children in the faith.

The subcommittee, which was formed more than 28 years ago to review catechetical texts, is taking on a new role to review more quickly digital resources being used now to spread the faith and to also look at other ways to creatively pass on the faith in a world often against spirituality.

One of the church’s leading experts on safeguarding and clerical sexual abuse has said the exclusion of women from seminary formation has had “extremely harmful consequences,” and this “needs to change.”

“We should not simply ‘do the synod’ and then forget the disciplines it called us to. Rather, we should let this experience inform our future activities. This will be occasioned by a patient discernment marked by a desire to accompany, to listen, to know, to love and to give our lives over to Christ.”

The pope urged seminarians to seek out and visit elderly priests, who are “the church’s treasure.”

An eight-week summer service program, part of the order’s summer service program, is designed to help men preparing for the priesthood to explore the connection that people have with the land.