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Glory to Jesus Christ! I recently read this article via St. Elias in Brampton's Blog: http://sainteliaschurch.blogspot.com/2012/06/call-for-substantial-reform-of-irish.htmlApparently only a minority of seminarians in Ireland are Irish (18/56), and as such there is a large constituency of Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics at the seminary. The article summarizes things this way: His “major conclusion” was “that the bishops of Ireland must reaffirm the identity and mission of the college as first and foremost, a house of priestly formation for seminarians from Ireland, with the presence of non-Irish seminarians and graduate priests from Ireland and elsewhere, never allowed to dwarf the primary mission and identity, as he fears it now does”.
His “strong concern” was that “in reality, the Irish seminarians are only a minority subset in the house (18 in an enrolment of 56, less than one-third!). The clear identity of the college as primarily an Irish seminary is thus compromised”. He felt that “the presence of Orthodox students in the house, as well as of the Eastern Rite Catholic men not preparing for the celibate life”, was an added complication.
He noted that “one prelate asked the wisdom of having the bishops of Ireland subsidise a house for predominately [sic] non-Irish seminarians and priests”. He also recommended that “the graduate priests ordinarily come from Ireland and that their number be fewer than that of the seminarians”.
He continued: “The Apostolic Visitor’s recommendation is that the college accept only seminarians from Ireland; if a seminarian is accepted from another country, it should be extraordinary; they should only enter at the start of the first-year and must demonstrate a facility in English. Eastern Rite and Orthodox students should not be accepted.” Prayers that these recommendations be reconsidered, and that a stronger emphasis would only be made on increasing numbers of Latin Rite seminarians would be the path forward. That it notes that there is a good amount of Eastern (Orthodox and Catholic) seminarians who plan to be ordained as married men, and that that could be problematic is especially worrisome if we are to move beyond Bishop Ireland in Ireland (and elsewhere). In Christ, J. Andrew
Last edited by j.a.deane; 06/17/12 11:10 AM.
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Will it never end?
Does the Cardinal really think the presence of Eastern Catholics and Orthodox at the Irish seminary (who, heaven forfend, might not be preparing for a celibate life!!) to be the biggest problem that the Irish Church faces?
If so, he isn't much up on the recent history of the Church on the Emerald Isle.
Many years,
Neil
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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The article begs for answers! Cardinal Dolan was speaking of the Irish College in ROME.
Why would Eastern Catholics and Orthodox in ROME attend an Irish seminary??????? Is it because the Irish Church greatly or entirely subsidize the cost? He is also concerned because the students don't speak English.
Celibacy aside, I can see his concern. Would Eastern Catholics be comfortable with a majority of its students being non-eastern Roman Catholics who can't speak the host nation's language?
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Paul: Look at the rest of the article on St. Elias' website. He continued: “The Apostolic Visitor’s recommendation is that the college accept only seminarians from Ireland; if a seminarian is accepted from another country, it should be extraordinary; they should only enter at the start of the first-year and must demonstrate a facility in English. Eastern Rite and Orthodox students should not be accepted.”
It is understood that the four Irish Catholic archbishops found this element of the cardinal’s report “surprising”. This was particularly so as the Vatican’s Council for Christian Unity had requested the Irish College, as it did other seminaries in Rome, to take in Orthodox students.
(emphasis on St. Elias' website) I think there must be far more to this story than this little article reveals. Lots of questions come to mind. Why was there a need for an Apostolic Visitation of this seminary? Why are there so few Irish students there in the first place? If the Irish have so few vocations as to ahve that many places open for other students, why not close the place? Where are the Orthodox students coming from? What Eastern Catholic Churches need the support for their students that makes it necessary to send them to the Irish seminary? Bob
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This is truly astonishing as His Eminence's own seminary (St. Joseph's, Dunwoodie) has a plurality of foreign born Hispanic seminarians.
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