Pope’s letter to seminarians

(October 18, 2010) The world will always need priests until the end of time because God is alive, and He needs people to serve Him and bring Him to others. Pope Benedict XVI hit home this point in a letter to seminarians asserting that even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization, people need God. The letter to seminarians on the occasion of the conclusion of the Year for Priests, June 19, was released in the Vatican on Monday. Drawing lessons from his own seminary life as a young man, the Pope urged them to be men of God living in constant intimacy with Him through prayer and listening to the Word of God in the Scriptures. He urged them to have frequent recourse to the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, which, he said, should be the centre of all their days. The sacrament of penance, he said, leads one to be honest with oneself leading him to humility. By “recognizing my own weakness, I grow more tolerant and understanding of the failings of my neighbour,” the Pope said. He also encouraged seminarians to popular piety, but cautioned against what is irrational and superficial elements in it. The Holy Father stressed the importance of study, saying Christian faith has an essentially rational and intellectual dimension. Hence in the study of sacred Scripture, the Fathers and the great Church Councils, dogmatic theology, moral theology, Catholic social teaching, ecumenical theology or canon law, they must understand and appreciate the internal structure of the faith as a whole, so that it can become a response to people’s questions. Pope Benedict also urged for the growth of seminarians towards human maturity involving the integration of sexuality into the whole personality, failing which, he warned, sexuality becomes banal and destructive. He lamented how some priests disfigured their ministry by sexually abusing children and young people. “Instead of guiding people to greater human maturity and setting them an example,” he said, “their abusive behaviour caused great damage for which we feel profound shame and regret.” However, the Pope admitted that “what has happened should make us all the more watchful and attentive, precisely in order to examine ourselves earnestly, before God, as we make our way towards priesthood.”