Bishops share concerns, ask questions when meeting Vatican officials

Published: 2004-04-01

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- U.S. bishops visiting Vatican congregations shared general concerns, but also asked specific questions, including when U.S. seminaries would undergo a formal visitation and what would happen with proposed Mass translations. Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of the Archdiocese for the Military Services said the congregation that deals with seminaries indicated it could be possible to begin the formal review of U.S. seminaries in 2005. When the U.S. bishops adopted their child protection charter in 2002, it included a commitment to collaborate in a visitation of each seminary, under Vatican oversight, focusing on the quality of its program of "human formation for celibate chastity." As part of their March 28-April 3 "ad limina" visits, the bishops from the military archdiocese and from Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina met March 31 with Archbishop J. Michael Miller, secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, which includes seminary education. The two main topics of the meeting were Catholic colleges and universities and "are they clearly Catholic," and the U.S. seminary visitation, Archbishop O'Brien said.

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