The Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and two of its suffragan dioceses, Tui-Vigo and Mondoñedo-Ferrol, have agreed to the merger of their respective training centers for priests, creating the Interdiocesan Major Seminary.
In a letter addressed to the priests of the three ecclesiastical circumscriptions It is specified that its residential bishops made the decision to launch this joint presbyteral training center.
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The new center will be based in Santiago de Compostela and is promoted as a consequence of the apostolic visit carried out between January and March 2023 to the Spanish seminaries and the subsequent meeting with Pope Francis, in November 2023, about which Cardinal Juan José Omella assured that the Pontiff had not summoned the Spanish prelates to pull them “by the ears.”
According to the prelates of the three ecclesial circumscriptions, “it has been a difficult but necessary step; “Perhaps, today, the only possible step to offer our seminarians the necessary formative elements that allow them to live the identity and spirituality of the priestly ministry.”
In this sense, they affirm that “priestly formation requires an educational community that develops its four essential notes”, namely: unique, integral, community and missionary.
“Unique, because it is a single disciplic path; integral, because it must cultivate the human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral dimensions in a balanced way; community, because the vocation is formed in the disciplic community of the seminary; and missionary, because all priestly formation is oriented towards the mission” the bishops detail.
The letter warns that “we must feel this seminary as something proper in each of the particular Churches,” which should not be an obstacle for “each diocese to accompany its seminarians and carry out vocational work with the support of this new institution.” interdiocesan.”
For the canonical constitution of the Interdiocesan Major Seminary and the drafting of its statutes, a commission has been formed made up of three priests, each from one of the dioceses involved. The three priests will make up the new training team. In the current course, the Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela has 15 seminarians; the Diocese of Tui-Vigo, 2; and that of Mondoñedo-Ferrol, 5.
Currently, the Catholic Church in Spain has 86 seminaries erected, distributed in 55 formation houses, which means that not all seminaries have an individualized training structure. For example, in Catalonia, seven dioceses send their seminarians to the same study center.
In the 2022-2023 academic year, the number of seminarians in Spain fell below one thousand candidates for the priesthood since the statistics were compiled, a downward trend that was confirmed for the current academic year.
Nicholas de Cardenas
Born in 1980, I am a Spanish husband and father and journalist with more than 20 years of experience in print and digital media, specializing in sociopolitical and religious information. I have worked for more than 10 years in defense of human rights and have accreditations in Journalism and Comprehensive Communication. Since July 2022, I have been a correspondent for ACI Prensa and EWTN Noticias in Spain, covering international events of the Catholic Church.