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Media: Saint-Sulpice Seminary, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, France.
Pope Francis’ address to Rectors of the Major and Preparatory Seminaries of France
Consistory Hall – Saturday, 25 January 2025
“Today, more than ever, the candidates who enter the seminary are very diverse”
Dear rectors,
I am pleased to meet you on the occasion of your Jubilee Pilgrimage, during which you have gathered to reflect on priestly formation.
This is a journey of discernment in which you perform an essential role.
You are like the elderly priest Eli, who said to the young Samuel, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam 3:9). You are the reassuring presence, the compass for the young people entrusted to you.
St. Paul VI affirmed that “today’s man listens more readily to witnesses than to teachers, or if he listens to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (General Audience, 2 October 1974).
This is certainly true of formators in the seminaries.
Their coherent witness of Christian life comes from within an educational community, whose members in the seminary, are the Bishop, the priests and religious, teachers and staff.
This community, however, extends to wherever the seminarian is sent: to the parishes, movements, families. The formation of the community is therefore integral – communitarian but integral – touching all the dimensions of the person and leading to mission.
In order for the seminary to be able to give this testimony and become a place conducive to the growth of the future priest.
It is important to take care of the quality and authenticity of the human relationships that are lived there, similar to those of a family, with characteristics of paternity and fraternity.
Only in this atmosphere can mutual trust be established, indispensable for good discernment.
The seminarian will then be able to be himself, without fear of being arbitrarily judged: to be authentic in his relationships with others; to collaborate fully in his own formation so as to discover, accompanied by formators, the Lord’s will for his life, and to respond freely.
Today, more than ever, the candidates who enter the seminary are very diverse.
Some are very young, others have long experience of life; some have a long-rooted and mature faith while for others it is very recent; they come from different social and family contexts, from different cultures; above all, they have received the vocation within the many spiritual movements that the Church knows today. Many of them come from these movements.
It is certainly a great challenge to offer human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation to such a diverse community. Your task is not easy. For this reason, attention to the journey that each one of them takes, as well as personal accompaniment, are indispensable, now more than ever.
This is why it is important for formation teams to accept, welcome and accompany this diversity.
Do not be afraid of diversity!Do not be afraid! It is a gift! Formation to accept others as they are will be the guarantee for the future of a fraternal priesthood, united in the essentials.
The goal of the seminary is clear: “to form missionary disciples ‘in love with the Master, shepherds ‘with the odour of the sheep’, who live in their midst in order to serve them and bring them the mercy of God” (RFIS, 3).
This presupposes a certain number of criteria, on which it is impossible to compromise, in order to confirm ordination.
However, the seminary should not try to form clones who all think the same way – this will not do – who all think in the same way, with the same preferences and options.
The grace of the sacrament is rooted in all that enriches the unique personality of each person, a personality that must be respected, in order to produce fruits of different tastes, whose diversity of the People of God needs.
And among the points to which it is most important to pay attention, I would like to highlight three.
The first point is to make sure that the candidate forms a true inner freedom.
Do not be afraid of this freedom!
The challenges that he will feel in the course of his life will require that he knows how to judge and decide with his own mind, enlightened by faith and moved by charity, sometimes going against the grain or taking risks, without conforming to ready-made answers, or ideological prejudices, or the prevailing thought of the time.
May they mature their thought, and mature their heart, and mature their hands.
The three things that must go together, coherently: what one thinks, what one feels and what one does. The three languages: that of the mind, the heart, and the hands. May there be coherence between them.
The second point concerns the maturaty of the candidate in a balanced humanity capable of human relationships.
The priest must be inclined towards tenderness, closeness and compassion.
These are the three qualities of God: tenderness, closeness and compassion.
God is close, He is tender, He is compassionate.
A seminarian who is not capable of this will not do. It is important.
There is no need to insist on the danger of a character that is too weak or inflexible, or of disorders of an emotional nature.
Besides, the perfect person does not exist, and the Church is made up of fragile members and sinners who can always hope to make progress.
Your discernment on this point must be both prudent and patient, enlightened by hope.
Do not be afraid of the weaknesses and limitations of your seminarians!
Do not be too quick to condemn them, and know how to accompany them.
What used to be called the martyrdom of patience: accompany them.
The third point is the decisive orientation towards the priestly vocation to mission.
The priest is for the mission. A priest who is the monsieur abbé is not for the mission. Thatwill not do. The priest is always for the mission.
Although being a priest obviously involves personal fulfillment, one does not become a priest for oneself, but for the people of God, so that they may know and love Christ.
The starting point of this dynamic can only be found in an ever deeper love, a passionate love for Jesus, nourished by a serious formation in the interior life and the study of the Word of God.
It is difficult to imagine a priestly vocation that does not have a strong dimension of oblation, of gratuitousness and self-denial, of sincere humility.
Jesus alone fills his priest with joy.
Now, it is not uncommon for some, along the way, to gradually end up “serving themselves”.
Be careful, especially with money. My grandmother used to say: “The devil comes in through the pockets. Please, poverty is a beautiful thing. Serve others.
Beware of careerism. Beware. Beware of worldliness, jealousy, vanity… Love for God and for the Church is then nothing more than an excuse for self-aggrandizement. It is bad.
When you find a cleric who seems more like a peacock than a man of the Church, it is ugly.
Let love for God and for the Church not be a pretext: let it be true
Dear rectors, thank you for your visit and for the service you offer the Church.
Your task is not easy, but I encourage you to persevere with confidence and hope, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the protection of the Virgin Mary.
I therefore bless you and your communities. Please, do not forget to pray for me. Thank you!
