Bangalore - Following three years of (1997-99) apostolic visitation by the papal representatives to the major seminaries in the country and after intense consultations, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI) released the Revised Charter of Priestly Formation for India recently.

The document was released by a member of the CCBI Commission for Vocations, Seminaries, Clergy and Religious, Jesuit Archbishop Stanislaus Fernandes of Ahmedabad, at the fourth annual meeting of the Association of the Rectors of the Major Seminaries (ARMS) and the Religious Houses (Latin Rite) at the Holy Trinity Regional Seminary, Jalandhar, Punjab State.

CCBI secretary, Father Arul Joseph shared that the apostolic visitation covered every major seminary in the country. “Archbishops and bishops both from India and abroad were delegated by the Vatican to visit the staff, the rectors and the seminarians to make a study of the present formation and see how the charter for priestly formation could be revised,” he said.

Chairman of the CCBI Commission, Archbishop Peter Fernando, who steered the charter revision process for the last five years, told the rectors’ meeting that the document was approved by the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.

“Four sacred congregations were responsible for conducting the visitation – The Congregation for Catholic Education; Evangelisation of Peoples, the Oriental Churches and Institutes of Consecrated Life.”

The general norms were later sent to the respective bishops’ conferences to be adapted in the Charter of Priestly Formation for India. The Sacred Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples approved the revised charter, April 10, 2004.

Father Arul Joseph and the Association of the Rectors of the Major Seminaries comprising Archbishop Stanislaus Fernandes of Gandhinagar and Bishop Prakash Mallavarappu of Vijayawada – who worked on the charter revision under the chairmanship of Archbishop Fernando for the last five years – explained the various stages of revision the charter of the formation had undergone.

“The revised charter has placed much emphasis on contextualisation of formation with special reference to the Basic Christian Communities. Much priority has been given to the spiritual formation in the seminaries. One full year of intense spiritual formation at the beginning of major seminary formation is the norm in the new charter,” Father Joseph said.

“Many seminaries in Tamil Nadu have already begun with this first year of spiritual formation...Soon other seminaries will have to do the same. Hereafter all the houses of formation of the Latin Rite have the juridical obligation to follow articles contained in the revised charter.”





Surojit Chatterjee
Ecumenical Press