About Priesthood Formation

The call to priesthood is an invitation to enter more fully into the life of God. This call is experienced in a variety of ways: through personal prayer, by way of involvement in the life of the Church, and through the People of God. An effective priest in the community of the Church today must be well prepared—spiritually, intellectually and pastorally.

Preparation for the priesthood is accomplished in four mutually supportive programs: human formation, spiritual formation, academic formation and pastoral formation. The integration of these four programs nourishes the student and assists him in discerning his call to priesthood.

Human Formation
Saint Meinrad School of Theology seeks to send out well-integrated graduates who take responsibility for their own emotional, physical, sexual and spiritual well-being. In pursuit of this integration, the school's human formation program works to develop the strength of character and healthy lifestyle that will be needed to exercise leadership and give service as an ordained minister in the Church.

During the course of each semester, seminarians attend conferences on various spiritual and vocational concerns, including priestly lifestyle, intimacy, sexuality, personal maturity, healthy living and professional boundaries.

Spiritual Formation
Spiritual direction is essential to priestly formation as it fosters, encourages and challenges the seminarian's growth in Christian life. Spiritual direction helps the seminarian to understand his religious and faith experience by helping him clarify and verbalize what the Spirit is doing in his life. Seminarians are required to meet with their spiritual directors regularly, ordinarily every two to three weeks. Each seminarian makes at least one annual retreat. Fifth-year seminarians (deacon class) make two retreats.

Academic Formation
Today's priests need to know and be conversant in the sources of the tradition. A critical knowledge of Catholic teaching and tradition is the foundation upon which all theological study and pastoral ministry are based.

In addition, priests must be able to relate the intellectual heritage of Catholic teaching and tradition to the concrete situations of the people they are serving. This requires that seminarians study systematic theology to grasp the meaning of faith, dogmatic theology to connect with the tradition's theological sources, and moral theology to wrestle with the complexities of conscience formation and decision-making.

Pastoral Formation
Saint Meinrad strives to prepare priests with a comprehensive pastoral outlook, enabling them to assume the pastoral duties that their service to God's people requires. This aspect of formation also fosters the habit of evaluating problems, establishing priorities, and looking for solutions on the basis of faith, through prayer and theological reflection.

The juxtaposition of ministry experience and academic courses permits the students' ministerial experiences and academic study to enrich each other.