Former Maynooth Prof. in call to ‘abandon’ seminary to train priests in parishes

Moves towards a parish-based ‘apprenticeship’ model of priestly formation would mean the end of the national seminary at Maynooth, a former professor at the college has said.

Calling for prospective clergy to study theology in Trinity College Dublin rather than at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Boston College’s Prof. Oliver Rafferty SJ told The Irish Catholic that any parish-based formation model in Ireland would “almost inevitably” have to be focused on Dublin.

“It seems to me that the hierarchy ought to make arrangements with the Department of Theology at Trinity College,” he said. “I know that will strike terror into the hearts of some, but there is a vibrant theological faculty at Trinity, augmented a number of years ago by the Loyola Institute, which specifically aimed to bring Catholic theology into the department at Trinity.”

Fr Rafferty – a former Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Maynooth – comments come following observations from Killaloe’s Bishop Fintan Monahan that parish-based formation could be more practical than current formation methods and would give student priests valuable experience of working side-by-side with laypeople and experienced clergy. Such a model is one possibility up for consideration by a committee tasked with revising the programme of priestly formation in Ireland.

If Ireland’s bishops seriously want to try a parish-based model of priestly formation, it would inevitably mean that Maynooth would effectively “be finished as a training centre for parish seminarians”, Prof. Rafferty said.

“It’s clear that the bishops want to move away from the old idea of seminary formation, and once they do that, if that is what they have decided, then obviously the consequence that flows from that is abandoning Maynooth as a seminary,” he said, adding that while seminaries have worked well in the past as a way of training priests they may not be well-suited to contemporary challenges.

“As an institution for forming priests, I think seminaries may have seen their day,” he said.

Cautioning against emphasising pastoral formation to the detriment of academic formation, however, he said that seminarians need “rigorous exposure” to the academic aspects of theology.

“Apart from anything else, in a society where the laity are increasingly educated, it would be a paradox to say the least if you had in general laity who were better educated than the clergy,” he said.

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