At the Synod on Synodality, the Western media focused on a limited number of hot-button issues — women’s ordination, married priests and blessing of gay couples. But hidden in the synod participants’ 40-page synthesis are some surprising gems that could lead to significant reform in the church. The hidden gems The first is a new Read more
Dr Tony Lanigan told graduates, college staff and guests at the St Columba Centre on June 7 that this was the last such ceremony for GSC because the New Zealand bishops plan to merge the college and The Catholic Institute of Aotearoa New Zealand into a “single provider body”. Read more in NZCatholic
New Zealand Catholic has reported that a single provider for Catholic tertiary education is expected to be fully in place for the 2020 academic year. The Society of Mary has agreed to relinquish co-ownership and governance of Good Shepherd College (GSC). In a letter to the staff of the merging institutions, establishment board chair Sir Brian Roche said the Provincial Council of the Read more
Lay support could contribute to priests’ “essential human formation” and provide their lives with the “necessary spiritual solidarity,” Cardinal Beniamino Stella says. Stella, who is the prefect of the Congregation for Clergy, believes if the laity were more involved in priestly formation, the crisis facing the church would not be so grave. In his view, Read more
Trainee priests in France are swapping their boarding school seminary isolation for community-based housing. Many have already relocated from enclosed suburban retreats into city centres. So far seminarians from the dioceses of Lille, Orleans, Nantes, Lyon, Rennes and Paris have relocated. The change in living arrangements responds to Pope Francis’s wish for trainee priests to Read more
Brother Mark McKeon FSC has been appointed as the new pastoral director of the Holy Cross Seminary in Ponsonby, Auckland. Recently returned from Palestine, Br Mark has been a De La Salle Brother for 35 years. He has been engaged in teaching ministry in Australia, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. NZCBC President, Bishop Patrick Dunn, Read more
A rigidity has been re- established in some seminaries which is “not related to situational discernment” according to Cardinal Beniamino Stella, prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy. He made the comment in an interview in L’Osservatore Romano about a new version of the Vatican’s document on priestly formation, “The Gift of Priestly Vocation / Read more
The Good Shepherd College Trust Board has the appointed of Fr Mervyn Duffy as acting principal from January 2017. Duffy is appointed for a brief period while a review of the structure of the College is undertaken. During this review the College will continue to operate as usual. Currently a lecturer in systematic theology and dean of Read more
Pope Francis has asked his fellow Jesuits involved in priestly formation to help seminarians understand that in the real world. “Decisions Catholics make in their everyday lives are rarely ethically clear-cut, but rather exist on a spectrum between good and evil,” the pope said. “We need to form future priests not to general and abstract ideas, Read more
A new diocesan seminary has been established in Guam. On Wednesday archbishop Anthony Sablan canonically erected the new St. John Paul the Great Archdiocesan Seminary of Guam. The ceremony took place after a Mass which was celebrated in the parish church of San Isidro in Malojloj. Attached to the church is the former Carmelite Monastery, Read more