The Vatican’s Congregation for Clergy has approved new norms for the formation of seminarians, which were drafted by the U.S. bishops’ conference in 2019, and have been under discussion between Rome and the USCCB since that time. 

The sixth edition of the Program for Priestly Formation, which governs seminary education for priests, will require seminaries and dioceses to reshape their formation programs, in order to accommodate new stages of formation at both the start and conclusion of seminary studies. 

The text has been the subject of close negotiations between Rome and the USCCB over several issues, including Rome’s requirement for a non-academic period of formation called the “propaedeutic stage.”

The program’s text, a copy of which was obtained by The Pillar, requires an initial formation stage focused on prayer,  which must ordinarily last one year, and which precedes philosophical studies. Some college credits can be taken during the preliminary stage, offsetting concerns about whether students will qualify for loan deferments or meet visa requirements. 

The U.S. bishops were notified of the PPF’s Vatican approval by a Wednesday email from Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, who serves as chairman of the USCCB Committee for Clergy, Consecrated Life, and Vocations. 

Checchio told the bishops that formal approval had been granted by the congregation’s prefect, Archbishop Lazzaro You Heung Sik on March 22 and communicated to conference president Archbishop Jose Gomez earlier this month. 

The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Pillar, may still be subject to “minor edits,” Checchio said, but the substance of the norms have now been finalized. 

Every national or regional bishops’ conference is required to develop its own document on the formation and education of seminarians, based on a periodically updated Vatican document called the Ratio fundamentalis.

National documents must outline the academic requirements, pastoral and spiritual development, and personal formation which is to be implemented in seminaries, and have to be approved at the Congregation for Clergy.

In the United States, the Program for Priestly Formation is issued by the USCCB and updated regularly. 

Read more at The Pillar