Sichuan seminary turns 25, wants to produce better preachers

Sichuan Catholic Seminary in southwestern China has marked its 25th anniversary with a determination to enhance preaching skills and spiritual life among its seminarians.

Procession before a Mass in newly built St. Joseph Square on the seminary campus during the two-day celebration.

Bishop Paul He Zeqing of Wanzhou (Wanxian), a board member and an alumnus of the seminary (1989-93), suggested a series of lectures on homiletics and more practice giving homilies.

He told a board meeting on June 22 that Catholic priests and seminarians sometimes lack preaching skills and are not as poised as many Protestant pastors.

The bishop also said he attaches great importance to all-round formation of seminarians’ personality.

Another board member, Coadjutor Bishop Paul Xiao Zejiang of Guizhou (Guiyang), advised the seminary to nurture religious sentiment and spirituality among seminarians, and to invite more guest lecturers who have studied abroad.

The three-hour meeting, which preceded a two-day anniversary celebration, reviewed the seminary’s performance in 2008. Activities during the year included exchanges with other Catholic seminaries and a Protestant seminary. More exchanges are planned with Buddhist and Daoist (Taoist) academies in Sichuan province, Father Joseph Chen Gong’ao, the rector, told UCA News on July 6.

To mark the Year of Priests declared by Pope Benedict XVI, which began on June 19, the seminary will run a summer camp for its teacher-priests to gather, exercise and promote fraternity.

Father John Wang Daoyu, a 41-year-old Hebei priest who has taught dogmatic theology and liturgy at the seminary since 2007, says it has good facilities but needs to improve its “software.” In his view, teaching of the Bible and canon law could be improved, and the library needs more books.

The seminary has invited teachers from elsewhere in the country to raise its teaching quality, he pointed out.

The silver jubilee event June 22-23 drew 400 Church and government leaders from across the country. It was the biggest event of the Catholic Church in Sichuan since the devastating earthquake that rocked southwestern China on May 12, 2008.

They attended a Mass and a ceremony at newly constructed St. Joseph’s Square on the seminary campus. Bishop He presided at the Mass, which Bishop Xiao, Bishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing and round 100 priests concelebrated.

During the May 2008 earthquake, the seminary suffered slight damage but has been repaired, Father Chen said. The quake killed 70,000 people and damaged numerous properties in Sichuan and neighboring provinces.

The seminary, located in Pi county, about 20 kilometers northwest of Chengdu, recruits seminarians every two years from dioceses in Guizhou, Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, as well as Chongqing municipality.

The teaching staff of seven priests and about 20 part-time teachers instruct 25 philosophy students and 28 theology students.

The seminary has an eventful history, Father Chen acknowledged. Before the founding of People’s Republic of China, Annunciation Seminary in Pengzhou county, built by Paris Foreign Missions priests in 1908, was the cradle of priestly vocations in southwestern China.

That seminary was forced to close down during political turmoil in 1950s. After the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), Church activities gradually revived and a regional seminary was reopened in 1984 in the compound of Chengdu diocese´s Immaculate Conception Cathedral.

Five years later, the seminary dismissed all seminarians due to what was termed a “lack of discipline.” Classes resumed in 1991, but the seminary was closed again in April 1994, when a majority of the seminarians protested against government interference. The government had appointing a provincial religious affairs official as deputy rector, replacing Bishop Joseph Xu Zhixuan of Wanzhou.

In 1996, the seminary was moved to a small campus in Pi county that had only one classroom and a small dormitory. It moved in 2005 to the present 2.4-hectare campus in the same county.

Since 1989, the seminary has trained 224 seminarians.

A pastoral center in the seminary compound hosts formation courses and retreats for lay catechists, priests and nuns.