PRESS RELEASE

Plenary Assembly of the Dicastery for the Clergy

Ongoing formation, care for vocations and the diaconate

From Wednesday 5 to Friday 7 June 2024, the Plenary Assembly of the Dicastery for the Clergy brought together the Cardinals and Bishops, Members of the Dicastery together with the Consultors, to discuss challenges and opportunities around three key themes: accompaniment and the ongoing formation of priests in today’s Church, the value of the ministry of the diaconate, and the promotion of vocational pastoral care, a synergic task for the Christian community as a whole, an ecclesial, synodal and missionary task.

This Assembly, seven years after the last one held in 2017, had two aims in particular: on the one hand, to inform the Members and Consultors of current issues and ongoing developments, and on the other, to be able to receive their expert opinion and collect their requests, as well as to encourage their cooperation, also from a distance. The discussion then revolved around the three key topics and the ordinary activities of the Dicastery.

The proceedings were opened by the greeting and prologue of the Prefect of the Dicastery, Cardinal Lazarus You Heung sik, and the introduction by the Secretary, Archbishop Andrés Gabriel Ferrada Moreira.

Each half-day was then devoted to one of the three topics under study at this Plenary Assembly.

First of all, the Assembly aimed to take stock of the process of exchange and comparison with the particular Churches initiated last February through the International Conference on the Ongoing Formation of Priests entitled “Revive the Gift of God that is in You’” (2 Tm 1:6) - The Beauty of Being Disciples Today. A unique, integral, communitarian and missionary formation.

Starting from the experience and requests gathered at the Conference, Fr. Raffaele Ponticelli, Consultor of the Dicastery, Professor of Psychology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty of Southern Italy and Director of the Office for the Ongoing Formation of the Clergy in Naples, focused on the critical issues, objectives and methods of the Ongoing Formation of priests today.

A second talk was on the path of human maturity and the accompaniment of priests, proposed by Sr. Martha Driscoll, Abbess Emeritus of the Cistercian Monastery of Gedono, Indonesia, currently at the Tre Fontane Monastery in Rome.

Opening the reflections on the Permanent Diaconate, Fr. Dario Vitali, Consultor and Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, evoked historical data and theological perspectives that can help to better interpret the restoration of this ministry by the Second Vatican Council.

Finally, Fr. Mario Óscar Llanos, Ordinary of Pedagogy and Pastoral Care of Vocations at the Salesian Pontifical University, offered a historical overview of the Holy See's commitment to the pastoral care of vocations, and outlined key points for further development in this field.     

The central moment of the Plenary was Thursday morning's Audience with Pope Francis in the Clementine Hall. In his address, the Pontiff strongly encouraged the Dicastery's commitment to the service of priests and seminarians, permanent deacons and vocations, and gave authoritative indications for each of the three major themes under consideration.        

Here is a brief summary of some of the perspectives that emerged.

Ongoing formation. It was emphasized how urgent the commitment in this field is. It is now clear that ongoing formation cannot be limited to theological and pastoral updating but must look holistically at the person of priests in all its dimensions. Pope Francis, in the Audience granted to the Participants, recalled how important it is that every priest can feel accompanied and can feel at home. He asked the Dicastery to continue to take forward that worldwide network that began in February 2024 with the International Conference for Ongoing Formation. “Do everything”, he said, “so that this wave may continue and bear fruit throughout the world”.

The care of vocations turned out to be a topic of fundamental importance that deserves the attention and commitment of the entire Church. The Pope's words were strong: “We cannot resign ourselves to the fact that for so many young people the hypothesis of a radical offering of life has disappeared from the horizon”. Hence Francis' request to reactivate the Pontifical Work for Vocations, “in a manner suited to our times”, and the suggestion of a concrete way forward: networking with local Churches and identifying good practices to circulate.

The permanent diaconate appeared as a reality to be accompanied and explored, in the light of the Council and the experience of the past decades. The sharing in the Plenary brought out many important aspects for discernment in this field. Here too, Pope Francis indicated a task: “I encourage you to work for this and bring all the necessary forces to bear”.