Cardinal George Pell has laid the foundation stone for a new Sydney seminary to be set up by the Neo-Catechumenal Way for the archdiocese. The Catholic Weekly reports a foundation stone blessed in the Vatican by Pope Benedict was set in place at Chester Hill last Sunday by Cardinal Pell to begin the building of a new seminary for priests in the archdiocese.
It is one of 70 Redemptoris Mater seminaries set up around the world by the Neo-Catechumenal Way.
The foundation stone, a rock from the Grotto of the Annunciation in Nazareth mounted on Italian travertine marble, is the gift of the grotto's Franciscan custodians.
At present Sydney's Redemptoris Mater seminary, begun in 2003, occupies a former Marist Brothers religious house at Pagewood and currently has 18 seminarians in residence from Australia and 11 other countries at various stages of priestly formation.
All are Neo-Catechumenates. One day, as priests of the Neo-Catechumenal Way, whose houses are Missionary seminaries, they will be available to go anywhere they are needed, in the least Christian parts of the world or in Rome.
Of 25 priests from the first Redemptoris Mater seminary in Australia, begun in Perth in 1994 at the request of Archbishop Hickey, half are working in Perth and the rest in other Australian capitals, in Broome, Balgo and even Helsinki.
There are now 15,000 to 20,000 Neo-Catechumenates spread around the world in more than 100 countries. There are communities in 20 Australian parishes, including St Fiacre's Leichhardt, two in the Parramatta diocese, three in Wollongong and two in Canberra.
At the solemn laying of the foundation stone in Chester Hill on Sunday, Cardinal Pell linked the Way with the papal authority of its endorsement by John Paul II.
He pointed out that the ceremony was taking place on the feast day of Sts Peter and Paul, a day that celebrates the institution of the Bishop of Rome and the papacy – "a candidate to be one of the most extraordinary institutions in human history and its oldest surviving institution."
"The Way is a great religious family within the Church, guided by providence, emphasising community and the priesthood," he said.
Seminary rector, Fr Eric Skruzny, said the seminaries were one of the most important fruits of the renewal in the Church called for by the Second Vatican Council.
He hoped that the first stage of the new building at Chester Hill would be completed by the end of 2009.
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