Fr Merv Duffy - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Thu, 09 Nov 2017 07:55:03 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg Fr Merv Duffy - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 Catholic seminaries with fewer than 20 students rumoured to close https://cathnews.co.nz/2017/11/09/seminaries-student-numbers-closure/ Thu, 09 Nov 2017 07:07:57 +0000 https://cathnews.co.nz/?p=101917

Rumours that Rome wants seminaries with fewer than 20 students to close may not be true. According to the Catholic journal, La Croix, Auxiliary Bishop Jérôme Beau of Paris says the Vatican wants to set a minimum limit of seventeen to twenty students for seminaries to stay open. It also says Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patrón Read more

Catholic seminaries with fewer than 20 students rumoured to close... Read more]]> Rumours that Rome wants seminaries with fewer than 20 students to close may not be true.

According to the Catholic journal, La Croix, Auxiliary Bishop Jérôme Beau of Paris says the Vatican wants to set a minimum limit of seventeen to twenty students for seminaries to stay open.

It also says Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong, who is the official responsible for seminaries at the Congregation for the Clergy, has told France's bishops the Vatican believes seminaries with tiny numbers of students should be closed or merged.

Wong reportedly made his remarks on Saturday the during plenary assembly of the French Bishops' conference.

The acting principal of Auckland's Good Shepherd Theological College, Fr Merv Duffy, said the information was "news" to him and may have been a comment in relation to someone else's suggestion.

Quoting the Code of Canon Law, Canon 237 §1, Duffy said "Where it is possible and advisable, each diocese is to have a major seminary; otherwise, students preparing for the sacred ministries are to be sent to the seminary of another diocese, or an inter-diocesan seminary is to be established."

Duffy went on to say to him this means "the six dioceses of New Zealand and the New Zealand and Australian provinces of the Society of Mary co-operate in the education of seminarians."

He pointed out that Holy Cross Seminary, Auckland, is an inter-diocesan seminary.

"The seminarians, diocesan and Marist, do their academic studies at Good Shepherd College; it is the off-shore campus of the Catholic Institute of Sydney, which is the only Ecclesiastical University faculty in Australia.

"The seminarians in New Zealand study the same theology papers that their counterparts in Sydney do."

Duffy then noted the concern about "small seminaries" seems to be that academic standards may not be maintained in such institutions.

The New Zealand set-up for seminary education ensures these standards are kept, he added.

Source

 

Catholic seminaries with fewer than 20 students rumoured to close]]> 101917 Chalice versus cup https://cathnews.co.nz/2012/05/25/chalice-versus-cup/ Thu, 24 May 2012 19:33:33 +0000 http://cathnews.co.nz/?p=25969

He thinks that some of the vocabulary in the new English translation of the Roman Missal is ill-chosen, but Fr Merv Duffy sm considers that the translators "are right in using the word 'chalice' rather than the word 'cup' because the symbol we see elevated is something special, rather than something ordinary". Read Fr Merv Duffy's Read more

Chalice versus cup... Read more]]> He thinks that some of the vocabulary in the new English translation of the Roman Missal is ill-chosen, but Fr Merv Duffy sm considers that the translators "are right in using the word 'chalice' rather than the word 'cup' because the symbol we see elevated is something special, rather than something ordinary".

Fr Merv Duffy sm lectures in Systematic Theology and is Dean of Studies at Good Shepherd College, Auckland.

Chalice versus cup]]> 25969