A Rome-based Catholic foundation
is offering a course to help educators ensure the spiritual and
psychological formation of candidates for the priesthood and the
consecrated life.
Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, who served for many years at the helm of the
Pontifical Academy for Life, said May 27 that the crisis in the church
over the problem of the sexual abuse of minors by priests was an
important factor in establishing the course, but not the only one.
The Italian cardinal is president of the Ut Vitam Habeant Foundation,
which is working with the Camillianum International Institute of the
Theology of Health Care to offer the course in Rome beginning in
November.
Canossian Father Amedeo Cencini, a psychologist and expert in religious
formation, said the course is designed to ensure candidates for the
priesthood and religious life are formed as whole people, with healthy
and deep relationships both with God and others.
The classes listed in the prospectus address the spiritual and
psychological development of candidates. Sexuality is discussed from the
cultural, biological and psychological points of view. A section on
immaturity and psychological problems will include a discussion about
masturbation, homosexuality and pedophilia.
Dr. Manfred Lutz, who heads the psychiatry department at a German
hospital and has acted as a consultant to the Vatican on the sex abuse
issue, said the formation of a candidate for the priesthood or religious
life is essential, but those responsible for preparing candidates also
need to understand when a candidate is unfit.
"There are people who cannot become priests, and it's not just a question of the right formation," he said.
Lutz said that future priests and religious need to be well prepared for
a life of celibacy, but insisted that celibacy was not the cause of
sexual abuse of minors. Instead, celibacy "renders a priest free to
develop his pastoral relations" and put all his energy and enthusiasm in
his pastoral work, he said.
Helping candidates learn to live happily in celibacy, he said, is much
easier than helping a candidate overcome a tendency toward narcissism, a
pathology he said was very difficult to eradicate even with good
formation.
Cardinal Sgreccia told reporters the course is the first of its kind to
be offered to Catholic educators and "if the course is good and
effective, others may follow" in other parts of the world.
The course was designed as two intensive, three-week seminars in a
two-year period. It is open to priests, religious and laypeople who
educate candidates in seminaries or religious communities, as well as
psychologists, doctors and others who support their work from the
outside.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith released a letter May 16
ordering bishops' conferences around the world to draw up guidelines to
protect children from harm.
The letter reiterated the need for bishops
and religious communities to exercise special care when accepting
candidates for the priesthood or religious life and to provide them "a
healthy human and spiritual formation" and a clear understanding of the
value and meaning of chastity.