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September
5, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 15Oakland,
CA
Vatican review of all seminaries to begin in U.S. this month
A Vatican review of U.S. Catholic seminaries will begin
this month, with a special focus on how the schools prepare priests to
“faithfully live chastely.”
On-site visits will be made to all 229 U.S. seminaries by three- and four-member
teams appointed by the Vatican. A team will visit St. Patrick’s
Seminary in Menlo Park on Oct. 16-21.
The last “apostolic visitation” to U.S. seminaries occurred
20 years ago.
Archbishop Edwin O’Brien, who heads the Church’s Military
Archdiocese, will oversee the visits for the Vatican’s Congregation
for Catholic Education.
Archbishop O’Brien is the former rector of the North American College,
the main U.S. seminary in Rome.
Archbishop Michael Miller, an American who serves as secretary for the
Education Congregation, told reporters in April that the visits are similar
to the academic accrediting process in other colleges.
“It’s a time for stock-taking,” Miller said at a seminar
for U.S. journalists. “An apostolic visitation is not an investigation.
It’s a time to ask what are we doing, and how are doing it.”
The review was proposed three years ago during a meeting of U.S. cardinals
and the late Pope John Paul II after the sex abuse scandal erupted in
Boston. The U.S. bishops promised “complete cooperation” with
the visits in reforms they adopted in June 2002.
Church officials will pay special attention to how seminarians are prepared
to live a celibate life, and how they are schooled in moral theology and
Church teaching on sexuality. They will also examine the criteria for
admission of candidates.
In 2004, there were a total of 4,556 seminary students in the U.S., including
1,248 in college-level programs.
The visits will encompass seminaries run by dioceses and religious orders
(such as the Dominicans, Franciscans and Jesuits); about one-third of
U.S. priests are trained by religious orders.
St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park
