Formazione sacerdotale alla luce del decreto conciliare "Optatam totius" e magistero ecclesiastico post-conciliare
Priestly formation in light of the conciliar decree Optatam totius and post conciliar Ecclesiastical Magisterium

Summary/Abstract: On 28 October, 1965, the Second Vatican Council approved the Decree Optatam totius, regarding the formation of candidates to the priesthood. In this manner the Conciliar Fathers confirmed that the hoped for renewal of the entire Church depended, in great part, upon the ministerial priesthood. It is priests who maintain daily contact with people. It is priests who had to enact Conciliar decisions. From this springs the need to form priests capable of understand the spiritual and religious message in order to translate it to concrete Christian life. The Fathers, by this affirmed the summary importance of formation, and they directed formators and seminary professors to form priests so that they would be shepherds of souls. The image of the “shepherd” held for the Council emblematic and synthetic value, because it indicated all the ecclesial dimensions of acting in the world. In this manner the pastoral end became the unifying center of pedagogic activity in seminary. All the aspects of priestly formation: spiritual, intellectual, and disciplinary, are directed toward this end. Seminarians then are invited to imitation the Lord Jesus Christ, Priest, Prophet and King. They must listen with attention to his call, follow him faithfully each day, conform themselves to him, be ready to give their lives for their flock, and to commit themselves to the new evangelization. In the formation of priests today, the should be filled with love for Christ and his Church, the Decree Optatam totius and the Ecclesiastical Magisterium is based upon this, may constitute a inexhaustible fountain of formative inspiration.

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