Buenos Aires, Argentina, Feb 19, 2009 / 20:43 pm
The Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, stressed the need this week to provide seminarians with a solid formation that will allow them to be pastors in contact with reality and evangelizers of the culture.
During the plenary meeting of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America in Rome, the cardinal spoke about the significance and importance of priestly academic formation. He also emphasized the need for it to be solid, especially in the case of those who are tasked with teaching doctrine.
“Perhaps in this point is where we find the crux of the problem with today’s formation: the contact with reality, as the evangelization of the culture and the enculturation of the gospel, requires solid discernment,” Cardinal Bergoglio said in an extensive speech in which he recalled that the mission of the priest is to communicate “the full life of Jesus Christ to our peoples.”
The cardinal went on to say, “Future pastors need to enter into contact with the heart of the cultures of the peoples they are going to serve, and not with the mere surface or with fragments of a reality mediated and modified by the positive sciences.”