Goals of the Ordination and Master of Divinity Credential Programs and Curriculum

By its mission to prepare men for the Roman Catholic priesthood, Kenrick School of Theology seeks to instill in its students: an abiding priestly identity, founded in Christ Jesus and in his Church; a cooperative priestly ministry, comprised of teaching, sanctifying, and leading; and an integrated priestly spirituality, embracing celibacy, simplicity, obedience, and prayer.

The three elements of this mission, in turn, break out into nine outcomes towards which the Ordination and Master of Divinity Credential Programs jointly work as goals. In what follows, these nine outcomes are formulated principally in the language of the rites of ordination, supplemented by the language of the Apostolic Letter of Pope John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis (herein after PDV).

1) In an abiding priestly identity, candidates will be configured in their very being to Jesus Christ, head, shepherd, and spouse of the Church. By the sacrament of orders, they will share in his consecration and his mission, exercising a true ministry in his name and person (PDV 18).

2) At the same time and through this same relationship with Christ, candidates will be placed both within the Church and in the forefront of the Church, promoting the common priesthood of all the People of God, and exercising their priestly ministry entirely on behalf of the Church, local and universal (PDV 16). This ecclesial dimension of the priest’s identity also relates him to Mary, the Mother of Christ, the Mother of the Church, and the Mother of Priests, to whom every aspect of priestly ministry may be referred (see PDV 82).

3) In a priestly ministry of teaching, candidates will hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience, and proclaim this faith in word and action as taught by the Gospel and the Church’s tradition (Ordination of a Deacon, Examination of the Candidate 15), a universal mission of salvation to the ends of the earth (PDV 18). In this mission, the Gospel becomes incarnate in the world’s many cultures, reversing what is incompatible with the faith and incorporating new cultural values to the life of faith (PDV 55).

4) In a ministry of sanctifying, candidates will celebrate the mysteries of Christ faithfully and religiously, as the Church has handed them down to us, for the glory of God and the sanctification of Christ’s people (Ordination of a Priest, Examination of the Candidate 15). They will also faithfully celebrate the Liturgy of the Hours for the Church and for the whole world (Deacon Examination).

5) In a ministry of leading, particularly in a parochial context, candidates will bring the faithful together into a unified family, and lead them effectively through Christ and in the Holy Spirit to God the Father, remembering the example of the Good Shepherd, who came to serve, and to seek out those who were lost (Ordination of a Priest, Homily 14). They will coordinate all the gifts and charisms which the Spirit inspires in the community, for the upbuilding of the Church in constant union with the bishops (PDV 26).

6) In priestly celibacy, candidates will live continently without wife or family (Program of Priestly Formation, 4th ed., 1992, 64), as a sign of their interior dedication to Christ, for the sake of the kingdom and in lifelong service to God and mankind (Ordination of a Deacon, Commitment to Celibacy 14b). Indeed configured to Christ, the head and spouse of the Church, they will love the Church in the total and exclusive manner in which he loves her (PDV 29).

7) In simplicity of life, candidates will use material goods lovingly and responsibly, renouncing superfluous things with great interior freedom; they will care for the poor and the weakest as people entrusted in a special way to them; and they will make themselves available to be sent wherever their work is needed, even at the cost of personal sacrifice (PDV 30).

8) In ecclesiastical obedience, candidates will respect and obey their ordinary, discharging the office of the priesthood as conscientious fellow-workers with the bishops (Priest Examination), and in solidarity with their brothers in the presbyterate (PDV 17).

9) In prayer, candidates will consecrate their lives to God for the salvation of his people, and unite themselves more closely every day to Christ the High Priest, who offered himself for us to the Father as a perfect sacrifice (Priest Examination).

The Standards of Accreditation of the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada require that a Master of Divinity Degree Program is to provide: “knowledge of the religious heritage; understanding of the cultural context; growth in spiritual and moral integrity; and capacity for ministerial and public leadership” (ATS Standards, A.2.0). Each of the nine goals  incorporates these four requirements, but some of the goals incorporate one or another of these elements in a more focused manner. Knowledge of religious heritage, in the form of Tradition, is an explicit focus of goals 3 and 4, which address the ministries of teaching and sanctifying respectively. The understanding of cultural context is a second focus of goal 3, which envisions the proclamation of the Gospel within the world’s many cultures; cultural context is also the subtext of goals 6, 7, and 8, which address the countercultural witness of the evangelical counsels. Growth in spiritual depth and moral integrity is the focus of goals 6 through 9, which develop the mission-statement goal of an integrated priestly spirituality. The capacity for ministerial and public leadership is the focus of goals 1 and 2, which address a priestly identity in Christ and in the Church, as well as of goal 5, which addresses the issue of leadership explicitly.