St Joseph's Society
Since 2015, candidates who are discerning their vocation spend between 6 or 12 months in the House of Discernment (currently based at the parish of Ss. Charles Borromeo and Thomas More in Aigburth); during that time they are generally engaged in pastoral work within the parish as well as schools and hospitals; they also engage in spiritual direction and, when necessary, academic support to prepare for the seminary.
Throughout this time of focussed discernment with the Vocations Director, the candidates – if it is deemed appropriate – will formally apply to begin seminary formation. After a series of interviews, a psychological assessment and a medical, they will be sent – if accepted – to undergo a year of spirituality in the English College, Valladolid, Spain or they will go straight to major seminary at St. Mary’s College, Oscott, Birmingham, or the Venerable English College, Rome.
If they begin seminary formation at Oscott, then they embark upon a 6 year programme. During the first 3 years, they read for a BA in Fundamental Catholic Theology. Subsequent to this, they complete a prolonged period in a Parish and, in the lead up to ordination, they study for a Pontifical Degree in Theology (STB). Alongside the academic formation, the candidates will also receive regular spiritual and human formation, meeting monthly with a spiritual director and a human formator. The spiritual director is a priest who provides advice and counsel, with the specific aim of helping students to deepen their lives of prayer and meditation, in order to develop and understand their relationship with God and His relationship with them. A human formator deals with the students’ relationship with themselves and the world; looking at areas such as sexual integration, appropriate boundaries in pastoral ministry, character and personality, dealing with personal issues and concerns etc. Candidates will also have exposure to a number of different pastoral experiences to prepare them for priestly ministry within the diocese.
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Formation at the English College, Rome has the same emphasis on the human, academic, spiritual and pastoral strands of formation, but the academic formation differs slightly. Students at the English College will undertake two years of Philosophy at the Pontifical Angelicum University and then 3 years of Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University. After completing those studies they will then be ordained a deacon and will spend the next two years specialising in a particular subject and gaining a licence in that discipline, depending on which areas of expertise are needed in the diocese.
Alongside term-time studies, students will undertake parish placements within the diocese as well as the potentiality of spending time in Africa in a parish to broaden their experience of the Church.
On July 7th, 2018, three priests, Fr. Carl Mugan, Fr. Philip Carr and Fr. Anthony Kelly, were ordained in the Metropolitan Cathedral, by Most Rev Malcolm McMahon OP, Archbishop of Liverpool.
All three studied at the Pontifical Beda College in Rome, where Canon Philip Gillespie is the Rector, and all three will serve in our archdiocese.
It was reported in the Catholic Pictorial, that of their priestly formation, "they all experienced a voice calling them over a period of years, which simply would not be silenced."
Currently, there are 9 men in seminary formation (mostly all university graduates/post graduates), and one in the House of Discernment for the academic year 2018/9.
In 2018 Fr. James Preston, Archdiocesan Vocations Director said that
"Numbers of applicants/seminarians are certainly only a shadow of the many who went to the major seminary in the past, but I am encouraged by the standard and calibre of the cadre of men who are currently in formation. I am certainly hopeful for the future, that with practical methods of aiding discernment (House of Discernment; monthly discernment meetings for those wanting to come and discuss the possibility of priesthood with me and other applicants/discerners; vocations events and conferences) as well as the prayers and ferocious support of the people of the Archdiocese of Liverpool, that young men will continue to heed the Lord’s call to go into the harvest."
Please view a You Tube video above about Vocations in the Archdiocese of Liverpool
View archive photographs in the gallery to the right
