UNITED KINGDOM
The Tablet
November 22, 2017
By Sarah Mac Donald
‘The main challenge is how to live a meaningful and committed celibate life in the priesthood’
A member of the Vatican’s Commission for the Protection of Minors has said seminaries must pay the “greatest attention” to the protection of minors and vulnerable persons in their formation programmes and mustn’t confine the matter to a one-off safeguarding lecture or workshop so that a box could be ticked.
In his address on ‘Formation in Safeguarding in Seminary and Religious Training’ at a symposium at the national seminary in Maynooth, Professor Hans Zollner of the Centre for Child Protection at Rome’s Gregorian University, said specific courses on the protection of minors must be included in seminaries’ programme of initial as well as ongoing formation.
The issue should not be something seminaries fear nor should it be confined to the area of sexuality, “it has to be part of our understanding of pastoral work,” he said.
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