Sunday, February 21, 2010

Vatican calls for higher training standards

Pope Benedict's most senior official has urged Irish bishops to concentrate their energies on ensuring that clergy are trained to the highest standards.

The Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone made the comment at a mass marking the tenth anniversary of the beatification of Pope Pius IX.

It is the first comment made by a Papal aide since Pope Benedict's meeting earlier this week with Irish bishops on the fallout from the Murphy and Ryan reports on clerical child abuse.

The Cardinal quoted a passage from a papal encyclical sent to Irish bishops by Pope Pius in 1852 and said it still had relevance.

The letter read: 'Each one of you (bishops) knows very well how eager the church is, especially in these hard times, to have suitable servants, who come only from well-trained clerics.

'Therefore devote all your care, thoughts, and diligent study to this, (so) that the young clergy, even from their earliest years, are trained in all piety, virtue, and ecclesiastical spirit, and that they are carefully taught literature and the more serious disciplines, especially the sacred ones.'

Cardinal Bertone is reported to have played a central role in this week's child abuse summit.

For most of the decade before the current Pope's election, the Cardinal worked as his right-hand-man in the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
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SIC: RTÉ