Forming priests or redefining the priesthood?
Synodality, seminaries, and the unresolved crisis of clerical identity
A recent report produced by a study group connected to the Synod on Synodality has proposed that women should have a greater role in the discernment and formation of candidates for the priesthood. The document suggests that women’s “perspectives and assessments” should contribute to evaluating seminarians and warns that traditional seminary environments risk becoming “artificial settings” detached from the ordinary life of the faithful.¹
At first glance, such a proposal may appear modest and procedural, little more than an adjustment in the internal mechanisms of priestly formation. Yet beneath the surface of this apparently administrative suggestion lies a far more consequential question. The issue is not merely who participates in the evaluation of seminarians. The deeper question concerns how the Church understands the priesthood itself and what vision of priestly identity is being formed in the seminaries of the present age.
To appreciate the significance of this moment, one must begin by recognising that the seminary itself is not an ancient institution reaching back to apostolic times. For the first fifteen centuries of Christian history, the Church possessed no universal system for clerical formation comparable to the seminaries familiar today. In the early centuries, the preparation of priests was deeply personal and ecclesial rather than institutional. Candidates for ministry often lived within the household of the bishop, learning the life of the Church through daily participation in the liturgy, through theological instruction, and through close pastoral apprenticeship under episcopal supervision.² This model emphasised mentorship and spiritual formation rooted in the lived experience of ecclesial life.
As Christian civilisation developed during the early Middle Ages, cathedral schools emerged as important centres of clerical education. These schools, attached to episcopal sees, provided instruction in Scripture, theology, and the liberal arts necessary for pastoral ministry.³ At the same time, monastic communities exercised a powerful influence on the formation of clergy. Many priests were drawn from the monastic life, where the discipline of prayer, study, and asceticism cultivated the habits necessary for pastoral leadership.⁴ The monastery formed not merely scholars but men whose intellectual life was inseparable from the rhythms of liturgical prayer.
By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, another development began to reshape clerical education: the emergence of the medieval university. Institutions such as the University of Paris and the University of Bologna became renowned centres of theological learning. Students from across Christendom travelled to these universities to study Scripture, canon law, and scholastic theology before returning to serve as priests, bishops, or teachers within the Church.⁵ Thus the Church relied upon a combination of apprenticeship, monastic discipline, and university education rather than a single uniform structure of priestly formation.
The modern seminary system arose only in the sixteenth century as part of the sweeping reforms enacted by the Council of Trent (1545–1563). The upheavals of the Protestant Reformation had revealed alarming deficiencies in clerical education and discipline. Many priests had received little systematic theological training, and the moral and intellectual standards of the clergy had deteriorated in several regions of Europe.
The Tridentine fathers responded by mandating the creation of seminaries in every diocese so that future priests might receive thorough formation before ordination. The decree Cum adolescentium aetas required bishops to establish institutions where candidates could be trained in doctrine, spiritual discipline, and pastoral responsibility.⁶ The seminary was therefore conceived as a reforming institution—an instrument designed to restore clerical integrity at a moment when the Church faced profound doctrinal and pastoral challenges.
Yet even this reform did not produce a monolithic system. Although Trent mandated the establishment of seminaries, it did not impose a detailed blueprint for their daily operation. Rome exercised doctrinal oversight and regulated aspects of clerical discipline, but the practical organisation of each seminary remained largely under the authority of the local bishop and the rector who governed the institution. Consequently, significant diversity existed within the Tridentine system.
Some seminaries were strongly influenced by the educational methods of the Society of Jesus, whose Ratio Studiorum emphasised rigorous intellectual training and classical humanistic education.⁷ Others drew inspiration from the spiritual traditions of the Society of the Priests of Saint-Sulpice, whose members specialised in the formation of diocesan clergy and cultivated a pastoral spirituality marked by interior discipline and sacramental devotion.⁸ The Tridentine model thus combined doctrinal unity with practical diversity, a balance that allowed seminaries to adapt to local circumstances while preserving theological coherence.
Alongside the major seminaries that prepared men immediately for ordination, the Church also developed a vast network of minor or junior seminaries. These institutions functioned as preparatory schools where boys could receive classical education and begin discerning a possible vocation to the priesthood. Minor seminaries became particularly widespread in Europe and North America during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, forming an important pathway into the diocesan priesthood.⁹ By the mid-twentieth century, thousands of priests had begun their formation in such institutions, which nurtured vocations from an early age within an environment shaped by prayer, study, and disciplined communal life.
The decades following the Second Vatican Council witnessed the rapid disappearance of much of this institutional network. Cultural changes, educational reforms, and a dramatic decline in priestly vocations led to the closure of most minor seminaries across the Western world. Major diocesan seminaries themselves began to shrink or merge as the number of candidates fell sharply. In the United States, seminary enrolment declined from more than 49,000 candidates in the mid-1960s to fewer than 5,000 by the early twenty-first century.¹¹ Comparable declines occurred throughout Western Europe, where many dioceses now rely on foreign clergy or religious institutes to sustain parish life.¹² What had once been a vast and vibrant ecosystem of clerical formation gradually contracted into a much smaller and more fragile network.
It is against this background that the current synodal proposals must be evaluated. The suggestion that women should participate more formally in the evaluation of seminarians is sometimes presented as a radical innovation. In reality, women already contribute to priestly formation in many seminaries around the world. Female professors teach theology and Scripture, psychologists conduct evaluations of seminarians, and women frequently participate in pastoral training programmes. Their involvement reflects the simple reality that priests serve the entire Christian community and therefore benefit from formation that engages the insights of that community.
The novelty of the synodal proposal lies less in the presence of women within seminaries than in the possibility that they might participate formally in evaluating candidates for priesthood. Yet even here the Church’s law remains clear: the responsibility for discerning a candidate’s suitability for ordination ultimately belongs to the diocesan bishop. Under the Code of Canon Law (1983), the bishop must attain moral certainty regarding the candidate’s doctrinal integrity, moral character, and spiritual maturity before conferring Holy Orders.¹³ Consultation may assist this discernment, but the authority to decide remains episcopal.
While diocesan seminaries have struggled across much of the Western world, a number of priestly communities have experienced steady vocational growth. Institutes such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and the Society of St. Pius X continue to attract significant numbers of candidates. Their seminaries emphasise disciplined communal life, classical theological education, and a strong clerical identity rooted in traditional liturgical practice.¹⁴
Yet the phenomenon is not confined to communities associated with the traditional Latin Mass. In France, the Community of Saint Martin has emerged as one of the most dynamic priestly communities in the country. Founded in 1976 by Abbé Jean-François Guérin, the community celebrates the Novus Ordo liturgy while maintaining a strongly traditional ethos in its spiritual and ceremonial life. Its seminary at Évron has become one of the largest in Europe and has contributed a notable share of priestly ordinations in France in recent years.¹⁵
These developments present an intriguing paradox. The diocesan seminary system that once dominated Catholic life has contracted dramatically, yet communities that emphasise clear clerical identity and disciplined formation continue to flourish. The contrast suggests that the crisis of vocations may not be explained simply by institutional structures or pastoral strategies. Instead, it may reflect a deeper uncertainty about the meaning of the priesthood itself.
For centuries the Catholic tradition has understood the priest as one who is sacramentally configured to Christ and who acts in persona Christi in the celebration of the Eucharist. The priesthood was not merely a pastoral function within the community but a distinct sacramental identity rooted in the mystery of Christ’s own priesthood. Where that identity is articulated clearly and confidently, vocations often appear. Where it becomes ambiguous or continually reinterpreted, they frequently decline.
Moments of crisis in clerical formation have repeatedly compelled the Church to return to first principles. The reforms of the Council of Trent arose from precisely such a moment in the sixteenth century. The present debate about synodality and priestly formation may represent another. If so, the future of priestly vocations will depend less on procedural adjustments within seminaries than on the clarity with which the Church proclaims the identity of the priest himself.
- Catholic World Report, “Vatican Synod report urges women’s input in preparing future priests,” 4 March 2026.
- Jean Gaudemet, The Church in the Late Roman Empire (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
- Marcia Colish, Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition (Yale University Press, 1997).
- Adalbert de Vogüé, The Rule of Saint Benedict: A Doctrinal and Spiritual Commentary (Cistercian Publications, 1983).
- Hastings Rashdall, The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936).
- Decree on seminaries (Cum adolescentium aetas), Session XXIII, Council of Trent (1563).
- Allan P. Farrell, The Jesuit Code of Liberal Education (1938).
- Louis Cognet, The Spirituality of the French School (1958).
- Timothy J. Meagher, The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (Columbia University Press, 2005).
- Thomas P. Rausch, Educating Clergy (Paulist Press, 2015).
- Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA), Georgetown University statistics.
- Philippe Portier & Jean-Paul Willaime, Religion in France: Secularization or Transformation?
- Code of Canon Law (1983), canon 1051.
- Joseph Shaw, Latin Mass Society reports on traditional priestly vocations.
- French Bishops’ Conference statistics regarding the Community of Saint Martin.
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