Sulpicians: Continuing Education

Rekindle the gift of God that is within you." (2 Tm. 1:6)

Continuing Formation

Sulpicians have always been involved in the continuing formation of priests by serving as spiritual directors for priests, by directing priests’ retreats and by giving workshops for priests. As is clear in first article of the Sulpician Constitutions, this ministry is part of the core mission of the Society of St. Sulpice.

Nevertheless, in recent decades there have been important efforts in all the provinces to provide a more organized and systematic approach to this aspect of our ministry. In the U.S., for example, the Province assumed responsibility for the Vatican II Institute for Clergy Formation in 1989, and in the late 1990s it assisted St. Mary’s Seminary and University in constructing, staffing and developing its new Center for Continuing Formation.

These trends were greatly encouraged by Pope John Paul’s exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis of 1992, which stressed the importance of ongoing formation for priests:

Long-term preparation for ongoing formation should take place in the major seminary, where encouragement needs to be given to future priests to look forward to it, seeing its necessity, its advantages and the spirit in which it should be undertaken... Often it will be suitable, or indeed necessary, for bishops of neighboring dioceses or of an ecclesiastical region to come together and join forces to be able to offer initiatives for permanent formation that are better organized and more interesting... To fulfill his responsibility in this field, the bishop will also ask for help from theological and pastoral faculties or institutes; seminaries, offices and federations that bring together people—priests, religious and lay faithful—who are involved in priestly formation.