The European episcopates spent a few days studying ways to renew vocation ministry. The meeting took place in Tirana (Albania). This is the intervention of Archbishop Jorge C. Patrón Wong, in charge of Seminaries in the Roman Congregation for the Clergy.
TEXT - Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong
Archbishop Secretary for Seminaries, Congregation for the Clergy
At this historic moment we are situated between two ecclesial coordinates separated by twenty years: the 1997 European Congress on Vocation Ministry and the next Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.
The starting point is the document of the 1997 Congress, which confirms and proposes a "leap in quality" in the pastoral care of vocations. By means of the images of the motherhood of the Church, the choral action of all the vocational agents and the personal accompaniment of young people. Indeed, this Congress marked a pastoral path that can be followed.
The objective of the next Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is the accompaniment and discernment of vocations in a spiritual and communitarian atmosphere that allows for their maturation and development.
I would like to propose five aspects of the pastoral care of priestly vocations in this context.
1. A specific pastoral action in favor of priestly vocations
The European Congress in 1997 summarized an important principle for the pastoral care of vocations: "If at one time vocation promotion was oriented exclusively and principally to some vocations, now it should be directed more and more to the promotion of all vocations, because in the Church of God we either grow together or we do not grow at all". (In verbo tuo, 13). This orientation directly concerns the Diocesan Center for Vocation Ministry, that is, the general organization of vocation ministry.
However, always in a second moment, when a young man is already in the process of deciding about the priesthood, the priestly vocation requires particular attention and careful discernment. Both actions are compatible and complementary. We can designate the first as "general" and the second as "specific". The first decision for the priestly life requires successive actions, before admission to the Seminary, which are more detailed and delicate because of the transcendence of the priestly ministry in the life of the Church.
