Pizza induced musing

Finally, after months of saying we'd do it, I went for Pizza with Mario Llanos and José Luis Plascencia. We had worked together during the long summer of 1999 when we all served on the international commission for the updating of the formation plan for the Salesian Society.

One of the issues we talked about over mushrooms and mozzarella was that there are folks who are trying to close ranks around our young adults in initial formation -- that is, if I can express it -- give them a fullproof, protective, closed environment. This refers to their living arrangements, but also to their course work. Solid, foundational theology courses are being diminished as courses in so-called "Salesian topics" are being increased. Instead of the traditional four-year course of theology, they are being put through a three-year program. Of course the plan is that they continue for a two-year licentiate, but the fact is that many provincials withdraw their students from the university (and the formation house) when they are deacons or when they are newly ordained priests, insisting that they attend courses but live and work in active communities. The arrangement works for about a month. In the end, these newly ordained are so taken by the "apostolate" that they never complete their theology studies beyond the first cycle "STB" (Bachelor in Sacred Theology).

Last week while I was at the Crocetta I heard the same conversation taking place. My old friend and ex-preside of the Crocetta Sabino Frigato told me that, at the Crocetta, they have had to cut part of their programs because the provincials don't want to let the newly ordained finish their theology studies. There too program has been changed from five years to three-plus-two years, with diaconate at the end of the third year, and priesthood at the end of the fourth… and then provincials are bringing the newly ordained back to the provinces so that they never get their licentiate.

Bishops are doing the same thing. We've got a group of newly ordained who commute to the UPS once a month and try to finish their course work and theses… but it takes them five years instead of one, if they do it at all. Great foresight on the part of the provincials and bishops!

The result is that the UPS faculty now wants to cram more courses into the three years, because they know that otherwise the clerics-to-deacons-to-priests will not have completed all their theology requirements otherwise. The Crocetta faculty is more cautious, but the result is that their students do not finish either, and three-years is too little.

Are we facing the dumbing down of the congregation and of the Church?