

























182  Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

 

 

 

 

C H A P T E R  1 2  
 

 

 

Seminaries and Priestly Formation: 

New Options in the Light of Modern 

Challenges 
 

Kenneth Adewole  ADESINA 

 

 

 

Introduction 

Every organization or community of human beings that have an 

objective or goal to achieve must as a matter of necessity eschew a 

programme of formation that will empower its protagonists in the 

task of attaining the overall goal. This plan must take cognizance 

of the peculiarities and intricacies that define the identities, 

collective and individuals, of all the human, material and 

procedural elements involved in the quest to attain the set goal. 

It is within this general purview of orientation for goal 

achievement that we want to look into seminaries and priestly 

formation, examining their status vis-à-vis the goal and focus of 

the Church as regards the Catholic priesthood. How can we situate 

the Catholic priesthood within the mission of Christ and his 

Church? What is the relevance of the seminary to this mission and 

how does it help in ensuring adequate preparation for the 

challenges and demands of the priesthood. 

In doing justice to the above puzzles, we shall be 

highlighting the various aspects of formation in the seminary, 

paying greater attention to the practical presentation of the 

contemporary situation in the seminary. Similarly, we shall be 

dwelling on the modern challenges facing priestly formation in the 

seminaries, with a view to proffering new opportunities for 



Seminaries and Priestly Formation: New Options in the Light...    183 

 

enrichment to a system that is poised to maintain efficacy and 

relevance of its core values in every age and situation. 

 

Seminaries: Relevance to Priestly Vocation 

When Jesus called his apostles, he already had the plan to entrust 

his mission to them. At the moment of their call, the apostles were 

not ready for that mission, so, they spent time with Jesus, they 

listened to him; they were with him on his journeys and witnessed 

his miracles. All these prepared them for the mission that would be 

entrusted to them later. Similarly, “the priestly vocation is a 
continuation of the call to the disciples; the Lord continues to call 

out to young men to participate in his salvific mission as priests”1.   

The seminary becomes a place of encounter between Jesus 

and the disciple he calls. The relationship between them is 

expressed by the word: “vocation”, a word that is derived from the 

Latin verb vocare, which signifies: “to call”.2 Within the context 

of priestly formation in the seminary, the word “vocation” can be 
considered from three different perspectives: the calling authority, 

the person called and the manifestation of that call.3 At the first 

instance, it is an invitation given by Jesus himself; the second 

instance shows it to be both a positive response and willingness to 

participate in the life of the one who calls; then the last connotes 

peculiar and active participation in the mission for which one is 

called. 

Thus, as a nursery for vocation, the seminary prepares 

young people to become protagonists of the salvation that Christ 

makes available to the world. Achieving this goal will require a 

formative programme that is cognizant of the intricacies that 

surround the people, institutions and the peculiarities of the 

situations involved in the process of bringing the salvation of God 

to all nations. 

In the realization that the priestly vocation is “a treasure 
that God always puts in the heart of some men, whom he has 

chosen and called to follow Him in this special state of life.”4 The 

seminary becomes not just a place, but also an opportunity, 

process and means of accompaniment that understands the various 

elements involved in the mission of the Church. It seeks to 

understand the peculiarities of each individual invited by God to 

work in his vineyard as priests, and subsequently through 



184  Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

 

appropriate means, assists the invited young people not only to 

realize the values inherent in the priestly vocation, but more 

importantly, help them to discover and develop the necessary 

attitude that facilitate the attainment of the goal for which Christ 

instituted the priesthood in the Church. 

In the words of Pope Francis, seminary formation "is not a 

unilateral act by which one transmits theological or spiritual 

notions. Jesus did not say to those He called: 'Come, I will explain' 

or 'follow me, I will teach you'; Instead the formation Christ 

offered to his disciples was 'come and follow me', 'do as I do', and 

this is the method that even today the Church wants to adopt for 

her ministers. The formation of which we speak is a 'disciplining’ 
experience, which draws men close to Christ and to conform more 

and more to Him"5 

 

Seminaries And Contemporary Challenges 

In meeting up with their responsibilities for the formation of 

priests, seminaries have structures and formative curriculum that 

facilitate the attainment of the priestly goal. While we shall be 

adducing more facts in the evaluative treatment of the present 

situation of seminary formation, it is pertinent to state that our 

seminaries have always been very loud in the profession of their 

faithfulness to the four cardinal dimensions of priestly formation – 

spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and human. The various stages of 

formation are aided by an array of effective agents, who ensure 

that candidates for the priesthood are aided in the acquisition of the 

values inherent in these four dimensions of formation as eschewed 

by Pastores Dabo Vobis and corroborated by other Church 

documents. 

However, instead of giving a deeper treatment to these 

already known aspects of formation, this write-up shall be 

dwelling more on the evaluation of the present situation in our 

seminaries in order to accentuate necessary points that should be 

reviewed or reconsidered, abrogated or reinforced. 

 Without any particular order of importance, I want to start by 

examining the style of formation adopted in our seminaries.  

 

 

 



Seminaries and Priestly Formation: New Options in the Light...    185 

 

Pedagogy 

In adopting the classic freestanding model of formation where all 

aspects of formation are conducted in-house, 6  our seminaries 

attempt to make the seminarians realize that even though they are 

in the world, they are not of this world. So, spending more time in 

‘isolation’ from the world, seminarians are equipped with 

sufficient spiritual, intellectual and moral strength that will enable 

them to function well in their mission to bring God’s salvation to 
all men. 

While there is no denying the fact that seminarians have 

enough opportunities for theoretical knowledge of what to do and 

opportunities to learn on the field during pastoral works; it is 

pertinent to note that seminaries need to do more in the area of 

training and workshop that would equip the student with practical 

skills on how to effectively transform their theoretical knowledge 

into practical situations of life for pastoral efficacy. In order to 

avoid the identity crisis that may come from this, the seminary 

formators and the various agents of formation must ensure that the 

adopted model of formation does not shy away from the reality of 

the ‘field’ where the seminarians will later work as priests. It must 

start inculcating in them, right from the seminary, the reality of the 

people among whom they are called to minister, and the urgency 

of getting ready to so mix with the ‘sheep’ they will pastor, so that 
they themselves may have the odour of the sheep.7 

Following this, there is a need for a review of the 

pedagogical approach in most of our seminaries. While there is 

actually no need to do away with or reduce the seminary’s 
emphasis on order, structure and discipline, seminary formators 

must realize, not only that their task actually goes beyond ensuring 

that candidates are vast and well-grounded in theological truth and 

priestly spirituality, but also that doctrinal orthodoxy, liturgical 

celebration, pastoral ministry and priestly spirituality do not 

sufficiently define optimum formation. 

Consequently, it becomes expedient that seminaries get 

their pedagogical approach right and realize that the project 

entrusted to them goes beyond ‘training of priest’, and that their 
real duty is actually the ‘formation of the priest’. More than a mere 

exercise in semantics, understanding the task ahead of the 

seminaries as formation of priests, over and above mere training of 



186  Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

 

priests, will help seminary formators evaluate their pedagogical 

approach to see if their students eventually are transformed into 

‘disciples’ and not just career pastors. 
This is a major paradigm change that the new Ratio 

emphasizes and calls for. Notwithstanding the models of priestly 

formation that is chosen in a seminary, the focus must change from 

‘training of seminarians’ to ‘formation of seminarians in 
discipleship’. This is well captured by Archbishop Eamon Martin 

when he adduces that “it has to be fundamental then, to every 
model of seminary, that we all – Seminarians, Rectors and 

Formators, theologians – on the lifelong journey of discipleship, 

called to follow Jesus Christ. Consequently, the distinctions 

between the steps (propaedeutic, initial, permanent), between the 

roles (of Bishop, Rector, Formator, Spiritual Director), between 

the dimensions (human, spiritual, pastoral and academic) and 

between the stages (discipleship, configuration, pastoral) are all 

somewhat secondary and instrumental to the overall integral 

formation of each of us as pilgrims along the Sequela Christi – 

under the action of the Holy Spirit and sustained by the grace of 

God”.8  
This emphasis on pedagogical approach carries with it a 

reappraisal of our general understanding of the priestly vocation as 

a gift – a treasure – gifted by God. In the words of Pope Francis, 

“this treasure, which needs to be discovered and brought to light, is 

not meant to “enrich” just someone. The one called to the ministry 

is not the “master” of his vocation, but the administrator of a gift 
that God has entrusted to him for the good of all people, rather, of 

all men and women, including those who have distanced 

themselves from religious practice or do not profess faith in Christ. 

At the same time, the whole of the Christian community is the 

guardian of the treasure of these vocations, destined for his 

service, and it must be ever more conscious of the duty to promote 

them, welcome them and accompany them with affection”.9 
Consequent upon the fact that the priestly vocation is a 

treasured gift to the entire human race, and that people gifted with 

such treasure must be assisted to appreciate, value and use it well 

through a whole process of discipleship, seminary Formators must 

keep in mind that formation does not end in the seminary. As the 

Ratio puts it, “the experience of discipleship of those called to the 



Seminaries and Priestly Formation: New Options in the Light...    187 

 

priesthood is never interrupted… the priest not only learns to know 
Christ, but under the action of the Holy Spirit, he finds himself 

within a process of gradual and continuous configuration to Him, 

in his being, and his acting, which constantly challenges the person 

to inner growth”.10 

So, while the seminary formator has a lot of roles to play 

in the discernment of the vocation of others, he must himself 

realize that his own discipleship is not ended; he must remain open 

to further guidance from the Master; and his own attitude becomes 

an inspiration to the seminarian to allow themselves to be 

influenced and nourished by the Holy Spirit. Not only from books, 

but the seminarians will also learn from the humility of their 

formators that “the priest can never consider himself to be 
definitively formed… [he] is certainly not the man who arrives at a 
parish perfectly packaged, with all the answers. There will often be 

people who are more qualified than him in facing particular 

problems, and the new challenges that emerge may well be beyond 

his seminary formation”.11 The priest, who is a formator, can also 

learn from the students he forms in various ways. In fact, instead 

of putting up a show of pseudo perfection because of its 

undermining effects on discipleship that characterizes seminary 

formation, formators must take to heart, the admonition of Pope 

Benedict XVI that “the faithful expect only one thing from priests: 

that they be specialists in promoting the encounter between man 

and God”12 

The indispensable role of the formators in ‘mentoring’ 
seminarians is well stated by Pope Francis in an address to the 

Congregation for the Clergy: “Formation is… not a unilateral act 
by which someone transmits theological or spiritual notions. Jesus 

did not say to those he called: ‘Come, let me explain,’ ‘Follow me, 
I will teach you’; no! The formation offered by Christ to his 
disciples came rather as a ‘come, and follow me,’ ‘do as I do,’ and 
this is the method today too, the Church wants to adopt for her 

ministers.”13 

Discipleship, both from the side of the seminarians and the 

formators means a proper understanding that formation is “not 

about mastering techniques or functional roles, but about following 

the path of discipleship: internalizing in co-operation with divine 

grace, the core virtues and ideals of disciples. Put simply, one 



188  Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

 

cannot be a credible witness, shepherd, healer or proclaimer of the 

Good News to contemporary culture unless one is rooted in a 

profound relationship with Jesus with the zeal and attitude of a 

disciple that will last a lifetime”.14  So, the seminary, both as a 

school and process of formation in discipleship for both the 

formators and the seminarians must ensure a steady form of 

growth in church leadership; inculcating the leadership values that 

are Christian, opening up to the guiding influence of the Holy 

Spirit, and understanding the view expressed by St. John 

Chrysostom that “the most basic task of a church leader is to 
discern the spiritual gifts of all those under his authority, and to 

encourage those gifts to be used to the full benefit of all. Only a 

person who can discern the gifts of others and can humbly rejoice 

at the flourishing of these gifts is fit to lead the Church”.15  

 

The Challenge of Discernment and Personality Formation 

While the spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and human dimensions of 

priestly formation are well spelt out; there is an aspect that the 

present reality of formation demands that we pay closer attention. 

This aspect has to do with discernment, but I will like to put it as 

emotional formation. It has to be given greater attention in 

seminary formation, either as a new dimension of formation on its 

own or as a well-accentuated and integral part of the human 

formation. This view is coming, not just because contemporary 

studies have revealed the importance and significance of 

Emotional Quotient and the influence of the management of 

emotion in personality formation and overall performance of man 

(which is not within the scope of this write-up), but more 

importantly because of its centrality in discernment and pastoral 

efficacy. 

First and foremost, making choices is really not as easy as 

it looks, but at various stages of life, we have to make choices. 

What is the basis of the choices we make? Important choices, such 

as demanded by priestly vocation, are so often accompanied by 

risks or laden with fear, that one cannot really make them right 

without courage and sincerity (at the natural level), and without 

divine assistance (at the supernatural level).  Thus, considering the 

whole complexity that revolves around senses, sensibility, 

emotion, action and sentiment in the whole process of personality 



Seminaries and Priestly Formation: New Options in the Light...    189 

 

formation and decision-making, one cannot but ask the important 

question: how much of attention do we pay to all these in priestly 

formation? 

Not to talk of the post-seminary experiences of priests and 

the frequent occurrence of depression (or desolation, to use a less 

stereotyped expression), the seminary formation needs to do more 

in assisting seminarians to really ‘understand’ themselves and the 
intricacies surrounding the decisions they make. Like any sound 

human being, it is necessary that seminarians and priests 

understand the art of managing emotions (and avoid being 

managed by emotions), so that when such emotions are seeking 

transformation into action through sentiments, they are not only in 

good stead to make right choices that are in accordance to their 

priestly aspiration and identity, but more importantly, the adequate 

formation of their emotion will grant them an openness to 

sincerely engage every element of formation with openness. 

The seminary formation, even if it cannot pay great 

attention to it, must put seminarians through the basic steps of 

emotional formation, which include among other things: being 

sincere in giving a name to one’s feeling (feel your feeling); 
discovering the source of one’s feeling (be sincere and intelligent); 
discerning immediately whether the feeling is good or bad (be 

attentive and timely); comporting oneself in a coherent mode (be 

courageous in taking a good decision); paying constant attention to 

mastering one’s feeling (be vigilant and responsible).16 When this 

is done, the requirement of the Ratio that accompaniment, 

engagement and discernment should be ensured to put the 

seminary formative programme into perspective that integrates 

well into the personality of the seminarian.17 

Considering the place of fear and hazardous effects of 

being controlled by one’s emotion and inordinate feelings, we 
shall appreciate the effect that emotional formation will have on 

overall priestly formation, especially in the areas of relationship, of 

trust between seminarians and the various agents of formation; 

honest assessment of strength and weakness, and disclosure of 

these to formators; willingness to receive and accept direction, 

guidance and correction; and building the capacity to live 

discipleship ad priesthood consistently. 

 



190  Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

 

Recommendations and Areas of Further Development 

In addition to giving adequate considerations to issues already 

raised above, priestly formation in the contemporary Church will 

be enhanced for greater efficacy if the following points will be 

treated not only with great attention that they deserved but also 

given the urgency that will stem the rot that they are creating: 

i. Call for a Ratio Nationalis for Nigeria: as requested by 

the Ratio Fundamentalis, the Episcopal Conference should 

put up the necessary machinery that must include a deep 

and collegial co-operation of all our bishops with the lay 

faithful and experienced men and women in the area of 

formation, to formulate a Ratio Nationalis The deep import 

of this lies in “not only implementing the new Ratio in a 

way that takes account of local traditions, customs and 

needs, but also courageously moving the whole formation 

experience beyond past and present methods, so that 

priests will be suitably prepared to engage and evangelize 

the secularized contemporary culture”.18 

ii. Evaluation of current admission standard and 

procedures: While the practice of lowering the standard of 

admission in areas of low vocation is not the best, we 

should also be wearied of raising the standard of those to 

be admitted so high that authentic vocations are destroyed. 

However, this is expressed without any prejudice to the 

fact that every aspirant should have the merit of his 

application considered by competent people, and the fact 

that greater attention should be paid to the prevalent falling 

standard of academic (and lack of interest in studies) into 

our various houses of formation.  

iii. How to help seminarians acquire a balanced view of the 

Church: It should never be taken for granted that aspirants 

to the priesthood have the right view and image of the 

Church. It is then pertinent that, even if it will be in a form 

of a workshop during their orientation programme, 

seminaries should ensure that seminarians have a good 

knowledge of basic ecclesiology – the mission of the 

Church, their place and role in the entire missionary 

enterprise of the Church. This will enable them to build 



Seminaries and Priestly Formation: New Options in the Light...    191 

 

their entire formation into the mission of the Church right 

from the beginning.   

iv. How to discern and understand the impact of secular 

society, culture and values on seminarians: Since the 

Church is called to show the Light of salvation to the 

world, seminaries must not just resign to fate in the 

acceptance of deficiencies evident in the formation of 

young people aspiring to the priesthood. The formation 

team in the seminary must stay ahead of their society to 

identify values that are inimical to the priestly formation 

and device a way of helping seminarians shed the toga of 

evil or immoral values. However, while a compromise of 

value is no option, understanding is required to help 

aspirants understand the need to move beyond such 

ungodly values – even if the society sees nothing wrong in 

them. 

v. An understanding of the characteristics of the age from 

which seminarians come: every age has its peculiarities, 

which can be identified both in strength and weaknesses. It 

is pertinent that our agents of formation, especially, the 

formation team of the seminaries, develop a means of 

proper understanding the young seminarians with the 

intricacies that define their age and values. Our approach 

to priestly formation must devise a means of channelling 

the winning mentality and readiness for challenge of the 

present-day youth into primary evangelization, and correct 

their disinterestedness in anything institutional; we must 

annex their hyper-connectedness in the social media for 

religious orientation and evangelization, without failing in 

correcting their weak human relations; and while 

formation takes cognizance of their naïve view of faith and 

gifts as personal belongings. It must never fail to teach 

them in charity, the true meaning of ‘communion’ and help 
them to strip themselves of self-sufficiency mentality 

through proper discernment. 

vi. The notion of human formation: In addition to issues 

already raised under emotional formation, seminary 

formation must pay attention to, and consider formation as 

a progressive achievement, a lifelong journey of 



192  Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

 

integration and discipleship, which must take note of the 

specificity of the individual seminarian. Learning from the 

experience of the once buoyant and vibrant churches in the 

western world, the formation must pay attention to the 

rising tendencies of extreme clericalism and pride. The 

image of the priest as a servant leader must be underlined 

and defined to stem the cancerous tendency of viewing the 

priest as a ‘deputy God’ or a clerical chief.  
vii. Integration of Formation: Consequent upon the 

insistence of the Ratio on the centrality of integration and 

personality, “the process of formation must educate the 
person in the truth of his being, in freedom and in self-

control.”19  This must not just be assumed, but practical 

lessons in form of seminars and workshops must be 

organized to help the integration of the various elements of 

formation into the personality of the seminarian. It is not 

enough to evaluate the readiness or otherwise in this 

regard, seminaries must concretely prepare them for this 

integration and authenticity that the priesthood requires. 20 

viii. Research and Teaching: Considering the nature of many 

seminaries in Nigeria and opportunities of researches and 

discoveries inherent there, the seminary should form the 

bedrock of the Church’s response to many challenges. As 
charity begins at home, our seminary communities should 

be able to and create time for concrete researches and 

teaching modules on how to address specific challenges 

like the transition from seminary to parish experience, 

dealing with extreme clericalism, careerism, 

commercialism, healing ministry etc. 

ix. Seminary Formators: The importance of the issues 

already raised will require that our seminaries are properly 

staffed and that the ratio of seminarians to formator is kept 

as low as possible. Most of our seminaries do not have 

enough formators to adequately guarantee the requirement 

of the Ratio Fundamentalis. It becomes expedient then, 

that more formators are sent to the seminaries; that more 

priests are sent for further studies to prepare them for 

seminaries; that the priests in the seminaries do not 

overstay their relevance to avoid burnout and redundancy; 



Seminaries and Priestly Formation: New Options in the Light...    193 

 

and that where there are cases of lack of interest to go into 

formation by priests, their genuine reasons should be 

considered and addressed.  

x. Special Needs in Formation: Among the special needs of 

the seminaries that must be looked into, I will strongly 

recommend that each seminary should have a formator that 

is capable of addressing the issues that pertain to the 

emotional formation. While this is without prejudice to the 

presence and need of both Spiritual Directors and 

Psychologist, I will show a greater preference for a 

pastoral approach to it. 

 

Conclusion 

Over the centuries, the Church has been providing effective 

leadership to the world, this has been possible so far, because, in 

addition to the divine grace bestowed on the Church, she has been 

able to so positioned herself to see things before the world sees, to 

see farther than the world sees, and to see more things than the 

world sees. By so doing, she has been able to stay above the 

destructive and manipulative schemes of the world. This 

experience has been incorporated into the formation of priests and 

it has proven beyond doubt to be effective. With the issues already 

raised, it is my candid opinion that the Church in the contemporary 

world cannot afford to be disinterested or treat with levity, the 

formation of priests, and that all aspects and needs of formation 

must be prioritized not only because this will ensure the relevance 

of the Church in our time, but more importantly because effective 

formation remains the only sure path we have towards the 

achievement of the Church’s missionary goal of making disciples 

of all nations. 

 

 

Endnotes 

                                                        

 
1 Franc Rode, Il Cristo della Formazione: Manuale biblico e teologico di 

formazione alla vita religiosa, (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 

2010), 190.   



194  Formation, The Catholic Priesthood and The Modern Age 

 

                                                                                                                       
2  Cf. Charton Lewis, A Latin Dictionary: Founded on Andrews’ Edition of 

Freund’s Latin Dictionary, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879). 
3 Cf. William Addis – Thomas Arnold (eds.), A Catholic Dictionary, 

(London: Kessinger Pub. 2004), 840- 843.  
4 Pope Francis, Address to the Plenary of the Congregation for the 

Clergy, 3 October 2014, 

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/october/documents/

papa-francesco_20141003_plenaria-congregazione-clero.html  (Accessed 

20/08/2019) 
5 Ibid. 
6 Declan Marmion et al. (eds.), Models of Priestly Formation, p. xxx 
7 Pope Francis, Homily at the Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday March 28, 

2013, 

 http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-

francesco_20130328_messa-crismale.html  (Accessed 20/08/2019) 
8 Declan Marmion et al. (eds.), Models of Priestly Formation: Assessing the 

Past, Reflecting on the Present and Imagining the Future, Minnesota: 

Liturgical Press, 2019, p. xix 
9http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/october/documents

/papa-francesco_20141003_plenaria-congregazione-clero.html 
10 Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis 80 
11 Declan Marmion et al. (eds.), Models of Priestly Formation, p. xviii 
12 Benedict XVI,  http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-

xvi/en/speeches/2006/may/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060525_poland-

clergy.html  (Accessed 20/08/2019) 
13 Pope Francis, 

http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2014/october/documents/

papa-francesco_20141003_plenaria-congregazione-clero.html  (Accessed 

20/08/2019) 
14 Declan Marmion et al. (eds.), Models of Priestly Formation, p. 20 
15 John Chrysostom, Six Books on the Priesthood, trans. G.W. Butterworth, 

Crestwood: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1964, p. 44. 
16 Cf. Amedeo Cencini, Dall’Aurora io ti Cerco: Evangelizzare la sensibilita 
per imparare a discernere, Milano: San Paolo, 2018.  
17 Cf. Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis 43-53 
18 Declan Marmion et al. (eds.), Models of Priestly Formation, p. xvi 
19 Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis 63 
20 Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis 131 


