SEMINARIANS:SUGGESTIONS THAT seminarians were being asked to live a "cloistered life" away from other students were rejected yesterday by Irish church leaders.
Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin and Primate of Ireland Cardinal Seán Brady said student priests needed “space” but there was no question of locking them away. Archbishop Martin also said the church was “not going . . . heresy hunting”.
They were commenting in the wake of the publication of the summary of seven visitation reports on the Irish church sent to Rome last year.
The visitation to Irish seminaries at Maynooth, Belfast, Rome and Milltown in Dublin was led by the Cardinal Archbishop of New York and president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Timothy Dolan.
Last January it emerged that doors had been installed at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, separating seminarians’ living quarters from the rest of the campus.
A new entrance to the seminary had been constructed to the rear of the building and proposals from the bishop/trustees of the college to create a separate dining room for the seminarians had been advanced. Presently, 90 men are studying for the priesthood at Irish seminaries, 72 of them at Maynooth.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday in Maynooth Archbishop Martin said there had been “some comment” in the visitation report on the teaching of theology in seminaries.
“I think there are basic ecclesiological issues . . . of an understanding of the church in which the teaching authority is relativised . . . we could do some more reflection on the concept of office in the church . . . what is the office of bishop or of a priest?”
There were “some people in Ireland who say ‘let’s move away from Rome’, but the role of the Bishop of Rome is fundamental in our understanding of what the church is . . . ”, he said.
“I am not saying we are going out heresy hunting but what we should be doing is carrying on a dialogue with the theological community, also in sharpening the reflection that is there and in addressing areas that may go beyond what is really acceptable within the realm of Catholic theology.”
Commenting on a recommendation in the summary that “the seminary buildings be exclusively for seminarians of the local church”, Archbishop Martin insisted the seminarians’ lot “isn’t a cloistered life. Seminarians here in Maynooth spend the vast majority of their time alongside other students . . . they attend lectures with them, they attend recreation with one another . . . libraries together.”
But he continued: “In a seminary there must be also that space where the specific formation of priests can take place and that requires a certain period of time and formation of community. It’s not about closing and locking up the seminarians . . . just go out and see the realities here . . . ”
Cardinal Seán Brady added: “ . . . and that request has come, time and time again, from the seminarians themselves. And we must remember the number of weeks they are absent from the seminary” and “in their parishes”. He felt it was “a bit fanciful this thing about being locked back . . . ”
Archbishop Martin said “there is a clear indication here that seminarians must be educated to be able . . . to overcome any sense of arrogance that could be in them.”
There had to be “much greater discretion in accepting candidates and one of those would be people not able to live this life of difficult ministry in a humble way . . . ”
He added that “as a trustee of Maynooth I would be very careful to see we do not have a system which would build a new clericalism . . . ”.
Where seminarians were concerned he “would be very anxious to see that they learn an ability to work in collaborative ministry and anybody who did not have that ability I would not have very much patience with”.
