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The matter had been decided during the previous year by the Rector Major and his Council. At the end of the third year and after obtaining the baccalaureate, the students of Theology at Gerini, will undertake a year of pastoral Theology while staying in the same community. The “Saint Thomas” community in the “Mary Seat of Wisdom” Vice Province in Rome which formerly hosted the young Salesians who attended the fourth year of theology will have the special care of the Salesian confreres of the Quinquennium.
The Faculty of Theology at the UPS, in dialogue with the General Councillor for Formation, has prepared the curriculum for the Diploma in Pastoral Theology for the fourth year. It also responds to the need for a more systematic and focused pastoral theological formation.
“The fourth year of specific formation for Salesian clerics, as in every formation community at this stage, envisages preparation for the priesthood, the exercise of the diaconate and a programme of studies. It is a full year which concludes the period of specific formation” Fr Cereda says in his letter of 31 May. “This Diploma in Pastoral Theology from the UPS can be of help to all our Salesian Centres of Theological Studies, to be a basis for their programmes for the study of Pastoral Theology. It can be useful to us in the process of the assessment of intellectual formation being undertaken in the whole Congregation for the various phases of initial formation.”
On Friday afternoon 3 June, the Rector Major, Ff Pascual Chávez, met the Gerini formation staff and the students of theology. He presided at Mass on the occasion of the blessing of a new altar and the renovated chapel.
Addressing the young Salesians in formation, Fr Chávez reminded them of the value and the meaning of the chapel in a Salesian house, and especially a formation house: “It is a place in which to savour the presence of God, where in our hearts there can be the struggle which occurred between Jacob and Jahvè, where God draws us to Himself in order to speak to our hearts and grants us gifts in abundance.”
The Rector Major was welcomed by the Rector of the community, Fr Riccardo Castellino and the Superior of the UPS Vice Province, Fr Joaquim D’Souza.
Published 06/06/2011
