Vatican official named Mexican archbishop; implications for US seminaries?
December 10, 2021
» Continue to this story on Vatican Press Office
CWN Editor's Note: Pope Francis has named the Secretary for Seminaries at the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy as Archbishop of Xalapa, Mexico.
Archbishop Jorge Carlos Patrón Wong, who regularly tweets in multiple languages, was bishop of a smaller Mexican diocese when Pope Francis named him Secretary for Seminaries six months into his pontificate.
Since the 1980s, the Vatican has recommended that a propaedeutic period of prayer and discernment, typically lasting a year, precede seminary studies; the Vatican made this recommendation mandatory in a 2016 document. The Pillar reported that Archbishop Wong has pushed for the implementation of this requirement throughout the United States, while leading US bishops, including Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, have advocated for a “more flexible approach” that would make the requirement optional.
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