Redemptoris Mater (seminary) - Characteristics

Characteristics

Redemptoris Mater seminaries are diocesan seminaries, erected according to canon law by the diocesan bishop, and the students who undergo formation at these seminaries are ordained to the secular clergy of the diocese. The specific characteristics of Redemptoris Mater seminaries are:

• an international character, i.e., with vocations coming from different nations;
• a missionary spirit, i.e., that upon ordination, the priests are available to go wherever the ordinary sends them; and
• that they have a connection to the Neocatechumenal Way.

Although the students receive the same theological formation as the other seminarians of the diocese, they go in mission for about two years during formation. After ordination, the Ordinary of their diocese may appoint them to a parish or for any other service in the diocese; he may also send them to serve in other dioceses of the world where bishops have asked for help. In the latter case, the ordinary and the requesting bishop would formalise their agreement according to canon law.

These seminaries have a direct relationship to the Neocatechumenal Way, which sees its formation as fostering an "adult faith": the Neocatechumenal Way prepares and awakens its vocations in many young people before they enter the seminary. It accompanies them during their time of formation; once ordained as priests it continues to sustain them in their permanent formation, which then becomes a means of evangelization for the "far away", an instrument for the implantatio ecclesiae.