Vatican City - The Final Report of Study Group No. 4 on the ordained ministry, published this morning and intended to accompany the implementation of the Ratio Fundamentalis (2016) within the perspective of a synodal missionary Church, proposes a rereading of priestly formation centred on relationships, co-responsibility, and participatory decision-making processes. In this text, produced by a restricted élite of “chosen” figures advancing a vision of the priesthood that is far from widely shared - neither among the majority of clergy nor among the majority of laity - clear frictions emerge with the very framework of the Dicastery for the Clergy’s Ratio (2016) and, no less, with what we have heard recently from Bishop Erik Varden, who brought the matter back to the decisive point: spiritual life as the supporting axis, the criterion of truth and of discernment.
The framework of Group 4: synodal conversion and reform of formation processes
The text begins from a programmatic premise: for the synodal journey to be fruitful, it must “have repercussions” on the way formation for the ordained ministry is carried out, and it calls for “a conversion of the heart, the mind, relationships and processes”, with outcomes that are also “communal and structural”. In this logic, the Group delivers a Guiding Document intended to “implement” the Ratio Fundamentalis and the Ratio Nationalis in harmony with the synodal impetus, calling for the “broad and genuine participation” of the People of God in formation, with attention to the contribution of women and families.
Identity of the priest: “in and from” the People of God and the question of ministerial position
In the Report, the synodal demand is translated in this way: the ordained ministry must be understood from its relationaldimension, that is, “in and from the People of God”. In other words, the priest’s identity is read above all within the fabric of the community, relationships, and ecclesial co-responsibility.
The Ratio (2016), by contrast, uses a formula that holds together belonging and distinction: the priest is part of the Church, yet through ordination he is also placed “not only in the Church but also before the Church”. “Before” does not mean personal superiority or privilege; it means a sacramental and public position: the priest represents Christ the Head and Shepherd in proclamation, governance, and above all in the sacraments. This is not a dispute about words. At stake is the problem of ministry today, and we have seen its consequences also in practical experiences that have recently ended up in all the newspapers. The Church cannot adopt the “in/from the People of God” reading, because authority then risks being perceived as deriving from process and communal consensus, representation as an “internal” delegation, and that “distance” which is in fact not distance at all in ministry is seen as privilege, when in reality it is simply the priest’s wholly distinctive relationship with God.
The 2016 Ratio, while showing limits on various fronts - particularly regarding certain aspects of affective and relational life - is very clear on this point: the priest’s “distance” does not coincide with sociological separation, but with a sacramental sign. In this perspective, the priest remains, first and foremost, a man of prayer, configured to Christ and a sacramental mediator. The effects of the “priest like us”, the “priest among us”, have shown us where they lead, and they are not at all edifying.
Consultation and decision: “non-ignorable” participation and the responsibility of authority
The Report of Group 4 insists on the “proper articulation” of decision-making processes (consultation, discernment, decision) but introduces a passage that changes the concrete weight of consultation: if a consultative path yields an orientation as the outcome of “proper discernment”, this “cannot be ignored”. In practical terms, while recognising that the decision-making competence of authority remains inalienable, the text assigns to the outcome of communal discernment a moral-ecclesial constraint: authority cannot simply decide otherwise as if nothing had happened, without bearing the cost of giving reasons and grappling with what has emerged.
These are considerations coming from people about whom it is natural to ask whether they truly live ecclesial communities or speak of them at a distance, in abstract categories. Because, in reality, consultative instruments already exist: presbyteral councils, pastoral councils, bodies provided for and practised for decades. Yet in the text this concrete experience seems to count for nothing, as though everything were starting from scratch. The problem, rather, is the ability to make these realities work, not to create new ones. One only has to look at what happens every day: how many priests tell their bishop “it would be better to do it this way”, and then find decisions taken elsewhere, often according to the agenda of the lay factotum of the moment - the person in the diocese who pulls levers, manages relationships, controls parts of the administration and, not infrequently, also a significant portion of the patrimony. In that context, talk of processes and “non-ignorable” outcomes sounds like rhetoric: the problem is not inventing new mechanisms, but having the courage to look at how the governance of many dioceses actually functions. And then there is the underlying misunderstanding: some of these circles seem to reason as if the Church were a democracy, where the majority decides and authority merely ratifies. It is not so. The Church is not a parliamentary assembly: the logic of ecclesial decision does not coincide with numerical victory, and reducing it to that means not having understood the very nature of the Church.
The Ratio (2016), while speaking of consultation and co-responsibility, keeps more clearly at the centre the proper nature of the act of governance in the Church: the decision is not merely an organisational function, but an exercise of the ordained ministry linked to sacred power and to the threefold munus of teaching, sanctifying (above all in the sacraments) and governing, within a hierarchical dynamic ordered to unity. Precisely here lies the divergence of emphasis: in the Report the category of sacred power tends to fade behind the language of processes and “non-ignorable” outcomes; in the Ratio, by contrast, it remains the decisive criterion that grounds and qualifies the responsibility of authority, even when it listens and consults.
Places and style of formation: more immersion in daily life, more subjects involved
Group 4 calls for formation that is less “separate” and more immersed in ordinary life, built also through shared experiences among lay people, consecrated persons and ordained ministers, and it speaks of “broad and genuine participation” of the People of God in the formation of future pastors. Within this frame it inserts operational indications: a “change of mindset”, a revision of formative environments and processes, and even the call for “a significant presence of female figures”. The problem, however, is that the formula is repeated like a feminist mantra without really explaining on what grounds and with what competence these presences should have an impact in discernment and priestly formation. It is striking that the argument is treated as if it were self-evident in one direction, while the symmetrical question is never posed: why is there not, with the same emphasis, talk of male figures in female formative contexts? The sense is that an ideological reflex weighs more heavily here than serious ecclesial reasoning. In seminaries it is necessary to include well-prepared formators who, above all, know and understand priestly life. Other fixations or hobbyhorses must not enter the debate.
The Dicastery for the Clergy, while speaking of formation that is “one, integral, communal and missionary”, has retained the Seminary as the ordinary architecture, and the Ratio insists on the synthesis between human and spiritual maturity and between “a life of prayer and theological learning”. This point is not negotiable: it is true that a candidate cannot live for years “outside the world”, but it is equally true that he cannot be deprived of time for “being with Him”, that is, with Christ. If formation is reduced to a set of interlocking experiences, presences and modules, without a real centre of prayer and sacramental life, the result is before our eyes every day, including on social media: clergy who agitate, who expose themselves, who perhaps “function” communicatively, but show evident fragilities in self-governance, in relationships, in preaching, in pastoral charity. The root is almost always the same: a relationship with the Lord not safeguarded, a spiritual life not structured, not nourished, not watched over. In the background, therefore, the critical point is simple: if reform concentrates its energy on the mechanics of places and the multiplication of subjects involved, formation risks becoming a device of processes rather than the generation of a priestly life centred on prayer, the Eucharist, doctrine and configuration to Christ.
Digital culture and personal integrity: unexpected convergences and differences of tone
In Group 4’s document, digital culture is presented as a now-structural factor in formation. It is listed among the concerns to be included in formative paths, calling for “a wise consideration of the incidence of digital culture in formation processes”. In essence, the digital sphere is treated as an environment that shapes discernment, daily habits, relational styles and educational paths, because it directly affects mindsets, language and the behaviour of candidates.
The Ratio (2016) moves in the same direction, speaking of the digital world as a new “agora” and integrating it into the formative itinerary, with the typical attention of a disciplinary text: the theme is treated above all as a field to be understood and governed, with prudence regarding risks and dependencies and with the idea of educating for responsible use of tools.
Thinking back to what Bishop Erik Varden told us in recent days, I find that his words illuminate the matter more convincingly. Varden does not begin from the digital sphere as a problem of skills or regulation, but as a litmus test for the spiritual man: “The integrity of a spiritual master… will also be evident in his online habits.” The point is not only to “manage” the internet; it is to understand that what a priest does online reveals his heart, his interior discipline, his freedom from the search for consensus, his capacity to guard silence, modesty, truth. In this perspective, the digital realm is not a sector to administer: it is a place where the real quality of spiritual life is measured and, therefore, the credibility of ministry. It is a change of approach which, however, this document does not offer.
Varden: spiritual life as a principle, not as a “module”
In short, if we read this document in the light of the deep and sound considerations the preacher made in recent days to Pope Leo XIV and his collaborators, we can see that the Trappist monk articulates a criterion that undergirds the whole discussion: “Spiritual life is not an addition to the rest of existence. It is its soul.” The Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, when it calls for “a harmonious interaction between… a life of prayer and theological learning”, moves precisely in this direction.
This document, while not denying the spiritual dimension, focuses its main thrust on the conversion of relationships, formative structures and participatory processes. The risk is evident: reform of priestly formation can slip into a kind of ecclesial engineering if it does not remain rigidly subordinate to the primacy of prayer and configuration to Christ. It is the same misunderstanding one senses in certain slogans of recent months, repeated by atheists, believers and even bishops: “We fast in Lent like Muslims in Ramadan.” No, it is not so. The outward gesture can seem identical - abstaining from food - but end, foundation and meaning are radically different. That should be enough to clarify the point: one cannot stop at an activity that appears “similar” to that of others. If we do not grasp that what we do, we do for Christ and in Christ, only a practice remains, and we will go very little distance.
The underlying limit of this Report is that it has mistaken priestly formation for a problem of structures, processes and participation, as though reorganising mechanisms were enough to generate solid priests. But the priesthood is not born from a set of procedures: it is born from a real life of prayer, from a configuration to Christ that is safeguarded and verifiable. If this centre is forgotten, we will have much ecclesial engineering, little spiritual substance, and a formation that produces fragile figures precisely like those we are observing, astonished, in these days in the “social media square”.
Fr.F.P.
Silere non possum