Conversations about the future of Catholic ministry tend to focus on the new frontiers—think married priests and the female diaconate. By contrast, very little is happening when it comes to reconsidering priestly formation.
At their fall meeting, the U.S. bishops adopted the sixth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation for U.S. dioceses and religious orders, which doesn’t provide a new model, but represents only a step in the transition to a new model, and thus doesn’t advance things very far. Meanwhile, there’s a good argument from certain quarters of the church that seminarians should receive training on how to work with the lay ministers they’ll be working with once they’re ordained. It’s not just a question of breaking the barriers between the formation of the clergy and the laity
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