PROVIDING 20 YEARS OF RENEWAL AND FRATERNITY FOR PRIESTS
The Mission of the International Institute for Clergy Formation
To provide for the individual Catholic priest a graduate university teaching and learning environment that addresses his body, soul and spirit as well as his unique vocation in a way that leads him to a clearer perception and fuller/richer experience of the essential ministerial significance that is his by virtue of his ordination so as to support his ongoing formation as a person and his sacred mission as a shepherd.
The implementation of the objectives and/or goal of this statement follows Pope John Paul II's document "Pastores Dabo Vobis" I Will Send You Shepherds. The four foci of this document are the following:
• Human Formation: Foundation for Priestly Formation
“It is important that the priest should mold his human personality in such a way that it becomes a bridge and not an obstacle for others in their meeting with Jesus Christ” (PDV, no. 43)
• Spiritual Formation: The core which unifies and gives life to his being a priest and act as a priest
“The full sense of becoming inserted in a living way in the Pascal Mystery of Jesus Christ…communion with God, which is the hinge on which the whole of the spiritual life turns, is the gift and fruit of the sacraments” (PDV, no. 48)
• Intellectual Formation: Understanding the Faith and seeking the wisdom of God
“To be pastorally effective, intellectual formation is to be integrated with a spirituality marked by a personal experience of God and is in a position to communicate the mystery of God to the people”(PDV, no. 510
• Pastoral Formation: Communion with the Charity of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd
“All the different aspects of formation are directed to a specific pastoral end. This pastoral aim ensures that the human, spiritual and intellectual formation has certain precise content and characteristics; it also unifies and gives specificity to the whole formation.” (PDV. No. 57)