Decree on priestly training Optatam totius

Some cardinals and bishops had large personal experience in the formation of priests as educators, instructors and confessors (Grootaers, Jan. 1996. “Il concilio si gioca nell’intervallo. La seconda preparazione e i suoi avversari.” In La formazione della coscienza conciliare. Il primo period e la prima intersessione ottobre 1962 – settembre 1963. Vol. 2 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 385–558. 525. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino). The texts on the education of the priests and on Christian education in general were discussed at a very late stage of the Second Vatican Council (ibid. 526). Most of the bishops welcomed the text on priestly training without much controversy in 1964 in the third session (See my Post “Preparing documents on the bishops, priests, religious and the lay”).

The basic and fundamental claim of Optatam Totius insists that all theological argumentations be based on the Bible. 400 years after Luther the Roman Catholics declared the Bible as fundamental book of theology. In 2024 we must take notice that more than half of the students at Catholic Theological Faculties are women. Some of them have the vocation to become ordained priests. Although the Church authorities are blocking this right to equal dignity, freedom and rights of all women, men and queer, I am reading the Decree on priestly training Optatam Totius as valid for women, men and queer. The New Testament does not restrict priestly ordination to men, and Jesus never ordained one of his disciples a priest anyways.

Optatam Totius 16 claims: “The students are to be formed with particular care in the study of the Bible, which ought to be, as it were, the soul of all theology” (Paul VI. 1965. “Optatam Totius. Decree on Priestly Training.” The Holy See). My interpretation of the Decree follows this first principle of Catholic theological work: The Bible first. From this principle, I take the mission to develop the education of women, men and queer, married or not married, for priestly offices. I want to contribute to adapting priestly training “to the particular circumstances of the times and localities, so that the priestly training will always be in tune with the pastoral needs of those regions in which the ministry is to be exercised” (Optatam Totius 1). The text of Optatam Totius 1 never was aimed at the possibility of women priests and married priests by the bishops of the Second Vatican Council. There were discussions at the Council to abolish celibacy for priests, but Paul VI took this discussion away from the Council.

When discussing the Decree on the adaptation and renewal of religious life Perfectae Caritatis 1, 3, I turned to Luke 9, 51 – 13, 21, where Jesus informs his disciples on the life of the Christian. The narrative of Luke 9, 57–61 is on the response to apostolic calling. There is no need to exclude women from the vocation of the apostolate. On the contrary, in many regions of the world there are extreme “pastoral needs” because there is a lack of ordained ministers. Despite this discrimination of the glaring pastoral needs within the Roman Catholic Church, the competent authorities concerning ordination and jurisdiction continue to ignore the teachings and deeds of Jesus Christ. The Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity Apostolicam Actuositatem number 2 clearly claims that all members of the Church are called to actively participate in the work for the salvation of the world:

“The Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the kingdom of Christ throughout the earth for the glory of God the Father, to enable all men to share in His saving redemption, and that through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ. All activity of the Mystical Body directed to the attainment of this goal is called the apostolate, which the Church carries on in various ways through all her members. For the Christian vocation by its very nature is also a vocation to the apostolate” (Paul VI 1965. Apostolicam Actuositatem).

The sacrament of the Christian vocation is baptism, and baptism is for all. Therefore, the vocation is for all. If the apostolate is part of that vocation, how is it possible to discriminate the women, queer and married men by excluding them from their priestly vocation? There is no doubt, the priestly training is a possibility condition for the realization of the possibility condition that a woman, man or queer be ordained with the ministry and the office of administering the sacraments and presiding the Eucharist.

During the discussion in the commission on the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity Apostolican Actuositatem in October 1964, the lay Patrick Keegan, president of the Catholic world association of the workers was given the word. He insisted on the important task of working for consciousness for the Christian responsibility of the laity, of educating the laity to realize this apostolic responsibility in their communities (Sauer, Hanjo. 1999. “Il concilio all scoperta dei laici.” In La chiesa come communione settember 1964 – settember 1965. Vol. 4 of Storia del concilio Vaticano II, directed by Giuseppe Alberigo, 259–292. 288. Bologna: Società editrice il Mulino). It is clear, the theological education of the lay women, men and queer is a possibility condition for the realization of their apostolic responsibilities. Some of these lay men, women and queer will then be qualified for priestly ordination. I am not speaking of a laicism. I am speaking of ordaining women, men and queer, married or not married, for Church offices by the Church authorities regardless of their sex or gender. These women, men and queer will be pastors, they will be “closer collaborators of the bishop”, who as “priests are charged with a pastoral office” of a parish as the Decree concerning the pastoral office of bishops in the Church Christus Dominus 29 claims. Christus Dominus did not talk about women and queer priests, but why not extend the message of the Council documents that concern exclusively men, to women and queer? So, with Christus Dominus 30, we may affirm for these women, men and queer pastors: “Pastors, however, are cooperators of the bishop in a very special way, for as pastors in their own name they are entrusted with the care of souls in a certain part of the diocese under the bishop's authority.” “Under the bishop’s authority” the pastors should realize also the triple munera that is the offices of teaching, sanctifying and governing. The “souls”, “the faithful and the parish communities” will chose their pastors and together they will take part in the election of a bishop, a female, male or queer bishop in the unity with other bishops and the bishop of Rome. The “souls”, “the faithful” who are never getting attention by Christus Dominus as independent subjects or as individual Christian communities of women, men and queer, now are really participating and realizing their vocation as Christians. These ordained women, men and queer should visit homes and schools to the extent that their pastoral work demands. They should pay especial attention to adolescents and youth. They should devote themselves with a paternal love to the poor and the sick. They should have a particular concern for workingmen, workingwomen and working queer. Finally, they should encourage the faithful to assist in the works of the apostolate” (Bausenhart, Guido. 2005. “Theologischer Kommentar zum Dekret über das Hirtenamt der Bischöfe in der Kirche.” In Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, edited by Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Vol. 3, 225–314. 282. Freiburg: Herder).

Optatam Totius 2 speaks of the “urgent fostering of priestly vocations”. Yes, the pastoral needs for ordained women, men and queer, married or not married, is an urgent need. But there is no need to deplore that there are no priestly vocations, because Go’d gives many priestly vocations to young women, men and queer. The authorities of the Roman Catholic Church do not foster these vocations, on the contrary, they ignore them. The Second Vatican Council claims, “the urgent fostering of priestly vocations” and at the same time refuses to foster the vocations and care for the vocations that Go’d is giving the people of Go’d.

Optatam Totius 2,1 recognizes: “The duty of fostering vocations pertains to the whole Christian community, which should exercise it above all by a fully Christian life. The principal contributors to this are the families which, animated by the spirit of faith and love and by the sense of duty, become a kind of initial seminary, and the parishes in whose rich life the young people take part.”

The tragic misunderstanding concerns the refusal to realize that the above addressed “young people” include not only “boys and young men” but all young, that is girls, boys, women, men and queer. Jesus Christ did not discriminate married men, women and queer from the discipleship; he did not speak of an ordination to priesthood and prescribe the conditions of admission for ordination, the first Christian communities had presbyters and bishops and later ordained priests to help the bishops and set up rules for admission to ordination. Patriarchal submission of women to men in the later centuries progressively excluded women from holding Church offices.

The Second Vatican Council claims against the including mission of Jesus Christ a discrimination of women and queer and married men. Ottmar Fuchs comments as a typical first-generation commentator of the Second Vatican Council that Optatam Totius 2, 1 recognizes Go’d’s grace and fundamental initiative evoking a vocation (Fuchs, Ottmar. 2005. “B. Kommentierung.” In “Theologischer Kommentar zum Dekret über die Ausbildung der Priester Optatam Totius,” Ottmar Fuchs and Peter Hünermann. 319–489, 395. In Herders Theologischer Kommentar zum Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil, edited by Peter Hünermann and Bernd Jochen Hilberath, Vol. 3, 384–489. Freiburg: Herder). There is no word of Go’d’s grace in Optatam Totius 2, 1, there is no recognition that Jesus Christ gives the Spirit and the charisms and that this gift is the possibility condition of a Church authority to speak of vocations at all. Fuchs claims a responsibility of the Church to recognize personal vocations, but he fails to mention that the Council does not recognize the personal vocations of Go’d but recognizes only vocations of men (ibid. 396). Of Go’d’s grace we hear in Optatatm Totius 2, 3.

Optatam Totius 2,2 calls on the bishops to “assist those whom they have judged to be called to the Lord's work” but it is clear that they judge only men to be called by the Lord. At this point Fuchs recognizes the fundamental problem of the whole Decree on Priestly education, namely the conflict of the freedom and liberty of Go’d’s grace and the incapacity of the Church to foster these vocations (Fuchs 2005, 397). Optatam Totius 2, 3 makes clear: The bishops discriminate the vocation of divinely chosen married men, women and queer “to participate in the hierarchical priesthood of Christ”, refuse them “His grace” and impede the “effective union of the whole people of Go’d” by ignoring its vocations:

“The effective union of the whole people of God in fostering vocations is the proper response to the action of Divine Providence which confers the fitting gifts on those men divinely chosen to participate in the hierarchical priesthood of Christ and helps them by His grace” (Optatam Totius 2, 3). At this point of the Decree, Fuchs would have the chance to point at the contradiction of the choosing grace of Go’d and the discriminating action of the Church that does not constitute “the proper response to the action of Divine Providence” because Divine Providence does not exclude married men, women and queer form the hierarchical priesthood of Christ. Fuchs comments on the “proper response of the Church”, forgets to think about the fact that for this response it was only natural to exclusively include young men, and he returns to his steady state of unreflective and discriminating male clerical existence for the rest of his commentary (ibid. 398).

Optatam Totius 3 is right: “In minor seminaries erected to develop the seeds of vocations, the students should be prepared by special religious formation, particularly through appropriate spiritual direction, to follow Christ the Redeemer with generosity of spirit and purity of heart.”

In 2016, there are about 100,000 minor seminarians in about 3000 dioceses of the Roman Catholic Church. One quarter of them are religious minor seminarians, three quarters are diocesan minor seminarians, and the numbers are decreasing[i]. Why does the Catholic Church exclude young women from these minor seminaries? Go’d gives “the seeds of vocations” to girls and boys. Consequently, this education has to be realized by motherly and fatherly superiors and not only “under the fatherly direction of the superiors” as Optatam Totius 3 claims. Cardinal Döpfner apparently preferred the family over minor seminaries. The seminaries have subsidiary function in cases where there are no families to take care of the education of the young (ibid. 401). Social and cultural contacts and contacts with one's own family should be possible, says the Decree. According to the theologian and expert Father Neuner, this opening of the closed system of the minor seminary serves the possibility condition for developing responsible relations to the other sex (ibid.). For an integrated education and formation of the youth in the sense of Neuner, co-education of girls and boys presents indeed the challenging task of the subsidiary function of minor seminaries that are open for all sexes and genders.

Optatam Totius 4 to 7 deals with the setup of major seminaries. In 2016, the number of major seminarians, diocesan and religious globally reached a total of 116,160. Two thirds are diocesan and one third are religious seminarians.[ii] 

Optatam Totius 4 holds the seminaries “necessary for priestly formation”. Following the discriminating male logic of female and queer exclusion from the priestly ordination, the priestly formation in the seminaries is to be ordered towards the pastoral end of service “after the model of our Lord Jesus Christ, teacher, priest and shepherd”. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, if women, men and queer together were educating and forming themselves after the model of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Optatam Totius 5, 1 continues discriminating. The training of the male students needs administrators and teachers that “are to be selected from the best men”. How will men be able to train men for the pastoral needs of women? Why are the best women teachers and administrators not invited to train the seminarians? Jesus invited male and female disciples; Paul invited female administrators and collaborators to lead Christian communities. The bishops are not capable of following their example. They do not allow training women, men and queer for the pastoral needs and ends of serving the faithful.

Optatam Totius 5, 2 wants the administrators, teachers and seminarians to “form a very closely knit community”, something like a family that corresponds to Jesus’ prayer in John 17, 11: “Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us”. Jesus speaks in John 17, 11 of his disciples, women, men and queer and he does not speak exclusively to the men given to him by Go’d. Making use of the Gospel in order to legitimate the discrimination of married men and women and queer does not correspond to the threefold commandment of love of the Gospel that is love of Go’d, love of one’s neighbor, and love of oneself (Matthew 22, 37-40; Mark 12, 29-31; Luke 10, 25-28).

Optatam Totius 6, 1 claims a proper examination of the “spiritual, moral and intellectual qualifications” and pastoral abilities of the candidates “to bear the priestly burdens and exercise the pastoral offices”. We know from the sad experience of clerical sexual abuse of children, youths, and women that the seminaries are not complying with this examination and the corresponding selection in formation. This deficiency concerns local, regional and national seminaries despite their approval by the Apostolic See and the mentioning of the possibility of forming peer groups in the large seminaries (Optatam Totius 7).

Optatam Totius numbers 8 to 12 speak about the care for the fundamental integration of the spiritual, intellectual, moral and pastoral formation of the “students”. Since the proposed formation really concerns all women, men and queer who would want to follow their priestly vocation, I understand the term “students” of the Decree as inclusive of all women, men and queer. This understanding does not correspond with the understanding of the Roman Catholic Church of the moment. Nevertheless, I stick to my conviction and mission for preparing the future “students” for the ordained ministries in the Church. When the moment of training women, men and queer for the priestly ministries comes, there has to be some suggestion on how to train them. The spiritual, doctrinal and pastoral training should help teach the students “to live in an intimate and unceasing union with the Mother/Father through Her/His Son Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit”. That sounds perfect. Yes, all, women, men and queer with a priestly vocation should join for this formation and “should be taught to seek Christ in the faithful meditation on God’s word, in the active participation in the sacred mysteries of the Church, especially in the Eucharist and in the divine office, in the bishop who sends them and in the people to whom they are sent, especially the poor, the children, the sick, the sinners and the unbelievers. They should love and venerate with a filial trust the most blessed Virgin Mary, who was given as mother to the disciple by Christ Jesus as He was dying on the cross” (Optatatm Totius 8, 1).

We must adapt the divine office according to the needs of our times. Reading and meditating important texts of Christians who empower taking part in the apostolic work is ok, but the rhythms of modern life do not correspond to the liturgy of the hours anymore. I am dreaming of the day when women, men and queer preparing for the priestly ordination “learn to live according to the Gospel ideal, to be strengthened in faith, hope and charity, so that, in the exercise of these practices, they may acquire the spirit of prayer, learn to defend and strengthen their vocation, obtain an increase of other virtues and grow in the zeal to gain all men”, women and queer “for Christ” (Optatam Totius 8, 2).

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church runs a big seminary in Kiev where the male seminarians live with their wives and children together with celibate male seminarians and prepare for the priesthood. I am not speaking of the impossible when speaking about men and women living together in seminaries, residences, or houses of formation for the priestly ordination.

Optatam Totius 9, 1 ruins the generous gift of the priestly vocation to women, men and queer by Go’d and cripples Go’d’s initiative by stubbornly insisting on an exclusively male hierarchy of obedience for the Catholic Church. Optatam Totius 9, 1 starts evoking “the mystery of the Church” and explicitly refers to Lumen Gentium 28. Lumen Gentium 28 calls the priests “fathers in Christ” and thereby discriminates all the “mothers in Christ”. A beautiful text on the priestly vocation gets rotten by sexist exclusion of women from Go’d’s call to the priestly vocation. The Second Vatican Council thereby takes “the life of the whole Church” hostage and submits it to male oppression. The Council does not hesitate to hijack Saint Augustine for this sexist discrimination of women and married men. Saint Augustine claims that one loves the Church of Christ to the extent that one possesses the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is given to every baptized and not only to male celibates. Ottmar Fuchs silently passes over this discrimination of married men, women and queer concerning the priestly vocation (Fuchs 2005, 413), its joy and rich experiences (ibid. 415).

Optatam Totius 10,1 claims possible “the continual exercise of perfect charity” only for celibate men and not as the vocation of all Christians, celibate or married. All are called to respond to “the precious gift of God” that is a priestly vocation. Optatam Totius 10, 1 does not remember the affirmation of the Decree on the adaptation and renewal of religious life Perfectae Caritatis 16, 1 that celibacy does not belong to the essential conditions for the priesthood (Fuchs 2005, 416). If Christian matrimony is a sign of the love between Christ and the Church, is this love not perfect? Speaking of “the surpassing excellence of virginity” in Optatam Totius 10, 2 does not make any sense and discriminates the married priests of other rites (ibid. 418). Nobody is able to surpass the love of Christ and the Church. The Decree discriminates at this point the equality of the sacramentality of marriage and of virginity (ibid.). The “mastery of soul and body” is not obtained by “renunciation of marriage”, the renunciation of a sexual life does not lead to a “fuller maturity” and does not earn a “perfect blessing” because the blessings of Go’d are graciously free gifts of mercy and not effects of human deeds. As there is the eschatological character of virginity there is also the eschatological character of marriage, the eschatological character of the office of the priestly ordination and all arguments that praise virginity also praise marriage, comments Josef Neuner (1908–2009), Jesuit priest and expert theologian on Hinduism at the Council (ibid. 419).

All women, men and queer alike who prepare for the priestly ordination should realize the virtues of Christian education that Optatam Totius 11, 1 evokes: “Such virtues are sincerity of mind, a constant concern for justice, fidelity to one's promises, refinement in manners, modesty in speech coupled with charity.” The Decree invokes psychology and pedagogy but does not really implement these sciences as necessary instruments of formation. The bishops are not held accountable for the priestly formation as an effective “initiation into the future life which the priest shall lead” (Optatam Totius 11, 3). The bishops do not give criteria for assessing “the fitness of candidates for the priesthood”, and they do not establish criteria for “a suitable introduction to pastoral work” (Optatam Totius 12).

Optatam Totius 13 to 18 treat “the revision of ecclesiastical studies”. The Decree does not describe the term “ecclesiastical studies” itself. Nevertheless, it is a correct description saying that ecclesiastical studies aim at qualifying women, men and queer for a special service in the Catholic Church. This special service concerns teaching the Catholic faith in schools, colleges and universities or participating in the pastoral work and administration of the dioceses at the local levels of the parishes, or at the center of the diocesan government. Ecclesiastical studies at theological faculties of Catholic Universities or at State Universities authorized by Rome qualify women, men and queer for jobs in the Catholic Church. Optatam Totius 13 to 18 directs the necessity and way of the revision of the ecclesiastical studies exclusively at the formation of male students for the priesthood. It is true that the vast majority of these male candidates for priestly ordination are educated in major seminaries. Catholic minor and major seminaries traditionally are exclusively for male candidates for the priesthood. Lately some seminaries started cooperation with lay institutions for lay formation. In the Catholic Church, there are no academic Lay Schools of Theology for lay students exclusively. In the last forty years, at the theological departments and faculties of colleges and universities there is a growing number of women, men and queer studying theology. Not only in the Roman Catholic Church but also in Churches of the Reformation or the Methodist Church students do not plan to be members of the clergy. In the US, universities are building interreligious theological consortiums. Member schools, which represent traditions from Jewish to Catholic, from Greek Orthodox to Roman Catholic, share teaching, libraries and other resources (Oppenheimer 2016). In Switzerland, Germany and Austria the lay students of theology not only largely outnumber the seminarians at the twenty-three theological faculties at State Universities or at the seven Catholic theological colleges. At State Universities, the candidates for the priesthood actually do not count much more than 1% of all students and almost 60% of the students are female and only 17% of the teachers are women.

Go’d is calling women, married men and queer for ordained ministry in the Catholic Church. Campbell-Reed is right: “paying attention to the dynamics of gender, race, class, sexuality and other ways that society marginalizes people, and teaching constructive responses are essential, if we want the church to be a transformation agent and not simply a status quo agent in society” (Campbell-Reed, Eileen R. 2019. “Examining Trends in Theological Education for Women – Part 2.” Ethics Daily. March 8). She is also right that changing understandings of gender, sexuality and leadership in the church will not “undermine or diminish the need for creating theological education in multiple formats to prepare ministers to serve the church and serve the world” (ibid.). It is also true that “the church has done a lot of harm to women and children; theological education should be part of healing and preventing sexual abuse, harassment and discrimination” (ibid.).

Since “churches are ready for women’s leadership, and women are ready to lead” (ibid.) I am commenting on Optatam Totius aiming at the preparation of female, male and queer ministers for the Catholic Church.

Optatam Totius 13 claims that “seminarians” preparing for ministry should be equipped with a humanistic and scientific training as a “foundation for higher studies”. In reality, we have to affirm that all over the world only a minority of students - seminarians, married men or women - preparing for ministry in the Catholic Church meet this qualification. The same is true of the knowledge of Latin that Optatam Totius 13 requires. In twenty years, teaching theology I met about three students who had acquired the knowledge of Hebrew and Greek for their Bible studies. There are few professors at the Theological Faculty of Innsbruck who read the Bible in Hebrew and Greek. The knowledge of Hebrew and Greek is left to the couple of teachers of Bible exegesis. I do not know about the necessity of Latin for a Catholic theologian, but being able to read the Bible is the foundation of any theology. Master students of theology would need an exam in Greek. Most of them take the exam after having passed almost all theological courses and shortly before ending their studies. In their case there is no knowledge of Greek, there is the fulfillment of Rome’s requirement of some kind of exam.

Optatam Totius 14 aims at “opening the minds of the students to the mystery of Christ” and decrees an introductory course into “the mystery of salvation”. Sadly, the bishops do not connect this aim with the educational and formation work of helping the students “to establish and penetrate their own entire lives with faith and be strengthened in embracing their vocation with a personal dedication and a joyful heart”. The introductory course into “the mystery of salvation” serves the perception of “meaning, order and pastoral end” of their studies but not the explicit integration of personal bio-psycho-spiritual integrity and the socio-cultural appropriation of knowledge. Fuchs tries to bridge the gap between the teaching of the mystery of Christ and the development and formation of the personal vocation of the students referring to the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church Lumen Gentium 1 and to the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the modern world Gaudium et Spes 1 and 22, by affirming again that the call of the vocation comes from Go’d and not from the Church (Fuchs 2005, 427). He is right, the teaching of theology, the teaching of the mystery of salvation, has to be realized as a pastoral performance, as a first experience of this salvation by the students themselves (ibid. 428).

Optatatm Totius 15 in a similar way first decrees the teaching of philosophical disciplines for acquiring “knowledge of man, the world, and of Go’d”. Only at the end of the article, “the true problems of life” are mentioned, and there is attention to the preoccupation of “the minds of the students” (Optatam Totius 15, 3). I very much agree that “In the very manner of teaching there should be stirred up in the students a love of rigorously searching for the truth and of maintaining and demonstrating it, together with an honest recognition of the limits of human knowledge” (ibid.). In other words, there is a pastoral aim in doing philosophy (Fuchs 2005, 428).

Realizing this “honest recognition of the limits of human knowledge” the students will recognize that there is no knowledge about Go’d as Optatam Totius had claimed before in the same article 15. On the occasion of the logical incoherence of simultaneously claiming knowledge of Go’d and recognizing the limits of human knowledge, I want to remember that most of the bishops at the Second Vatican Council took their philosophical formation from courses on the thirteenth century theologian Saint Aquinas. The majority of the bishops were not familiar with the Kantian distinction of faith and knowledge and the epistemological limits of metaphysics.

Optatam Totius 16 is a long article on the theological disciplines. Optatatm Totius 16, 1 insists on “the light of faith under the guidance of the magisterium of the Church” and only then affirms, “Catholic doctrine” draws “from divine revelation”. It is not the magisterium of the Church under the guidance of faith, it is the other way around. According to Fuchs, Lumen Gentium 25 tells us that the magisterium consists of the bishops and the bishop of Rome (Fuchs 2005, 432). He omits Lumen Gentium 25, 4 where the Council affirms that the Roman Pontiffs defines a faith judgement also alone - that is without the bishops.

Optatam Totius 16, 2 is clearer than Dei Verbum 24 - there we read “should” instead of “ought to” -, and categorically affirms that “the study of the Bible ought to be the soul of all theology”. Biblical themes are to be proposed first of all, then follows dogmatic theology, “the Fathers of the Eastern and Western Church” and all “in relation to the general history of the Church”. The relation of dogma and history makes it clear that the dogma developed in history (Fuchs 2005, 435). The guidance of Saint Thomas is suggested, and the liturgical and “entire life of the Church” should enable the present experience of the mystery of Christ. Thomas is a model for theology, because he was ready to challenge the philosophy of Aristotle and argued the whole of theology in logical coherence. Thomas does not answer our contemporary theological problems but encourages us to solve our theological problems with logical coherence according to contemporary philosophies (Fuchs 2005, 436). The “light of the revelation” should contribute to “the solutions to human problems” applying “the eternal truths of revelation to the changeable conditions of human affairs”. The teaching of the Bible should also nourish moral theology, the teaching of Canon Law and of Church history “should take into account the mystery of the Church” following Lumen Gentium. Sacred liturgy should be taught according to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium 15 and 16 and always realize the mystery of Go’d among the faithful in their celebrations (Sacrosanctum Concilium 7). With reference to the Decree on ecumenism Unitatis redintegratio 1, 9 and 10, the Decree claims that theological studies should also consider ecumenism and insists on the dialogue with other religions.

Optatam Totius 17 encourages the study of theology in small groups and not only in private aiming at “a true and intimate formation” and Optatam Totius 18 reminds the bishops to select able “young men” preparing for priesthood for university studies to obtain “a higher scientific level in the sacred sciences”. Unfortunately, the bishops are not encouraging young women in the same way.

Optatam Totius 19 and 20 promote the pastoral training during formation. For the ministry the students are trained “in catechesis and preaching, in liturgical worship and the administration of the sacraments, in works of charity, in assisting the erring and the unbelieving, and in the other pastoral functions”. This sounds very good, also that “they are to be carefully instructed in the art of directing souls”. I very much agree that the students of theology develop “the ability to listen to others and to open their hearts and minds in the spirit of charity to the various circumstances and needs of men” and let me complete to the circumstances and needs of women and queer. All these abilities and capabilities I do find realized with many of our female, male and queer lay students of theology but indeed very rarely with the male students preparing for the priestly ordination. Laywomen and men direct souls. Pastorally experienced and well-trained laywomen and laymen in post-graduate pastoral courses and institutes are initiating young laywomen and laymen “into pastoral work”.

Optatatm Totius 20 claims that experienced priests and prudent bishops initiate the seminarians into pastoral work. In reality, lay expert women and men realize this job initiation and qualified priests are not around anymore. Optatam Totius 20 wants the seminarians to be “inspiring and fostering the apostolic activity of the laity”. This is the first time that the laity gets a mentioning in the Decree. The reference to the Decree on the laity Apostolicum Actuositatem 33 is placed in a footnote. The Lord “sends the laity into every town and place where He will come (cf. Luke 10:1) so that they may show that they are co-workers in the various forms and modes of the one apostolate of the Church, which must be constantly adapted to the new needs of our times” (Apostolicum Actuositatem 33). Fifty years after this statement was written, we are allowed to assess that the apostolate of the laity adapted to the new needs of our times, but the bishops and the popes do not find the courage to confirm this work of the Holy Spirit. Fifty years after the Second Vatican Council, we are giving thanks to the Lord. Today the lay women, men and queer are inspiring and fostering the apostolic activity of the laity and are waiting for their ordination.

Optatam Totius 21 affirms the necessity for seminarians of “exercising the apostolate practically”. I want to extend to all, laywomen, men and queer who are preparing for the apostolate the exigence that they are “practically able to act both on their own responsibility and in harmonious conjunction with others”. Therefore, we are praying to the Lord that the Catholic hierarchy opens up to the law of the Spirit who vivifies the life of the Church by permitting the priestly ordination of women and men, married or celibate, queer or straight. The young male priests in the Western world are lacking the capabilities of listening, caring and team working, they are theologically and practically not well prepared for the ministry and the bishops are not held accountable for this scandal.

Optatam Totius 22 speaks of the necessity of permanent formation. The conclusion falsely and discriminatingly tells the males who are preparing for the priestly ministry that they have “to realize the hope of the Church and the salvation of souls being committed to them”. The hope of the Church is Go’d’s gift of vocations for the ministry in the Church that is the vocation of women, men and queer and not exclusively of celibate male men. All who are preparing for the priestly ministry are realizing the hope for the salvation of those who are committed to them.

[i] “Vatican – Catholic Church Statistics 2018,” agenzia fides, http://www.fides.org/en/news/64944-VATICAN_CATHOLIC_CHURCH_STATISTICS_2018 (accessed May 30, 2019).

[ii] “Vatican – Catholic Church Statistics 2018,” agenzia fides, http://www.fides.org/en/news/64944-VATICAN_CATHOLIC_CHURCH_STATISTICS_2018 (accessed May 30, 2019).