By David Karas | Correspondent
School may be out for most students this month, but some New Jersey seminarians could be found hitting the books in St. Charles Borromeo Seminary, Wynnewood, Pa.
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Seminarians of the Diocese of Trenton took part in the second annual Seminarian Clerkship Week, hosted by the seminary June 6-10. Instructors included Msgr. Thomas J. Mullelly, diocesan vicar for clergy and consecrated life and director of seminarians, as well as personnel from Villanova University’s Center for Church Management.
The program is designed to cover material generally not taught in traditional seminary curricula, and includes workshops on such topics as balancing a parish budget, marketing, interpersonal relationships, pastoral leadership and legal responsibilities.
“Leading the community of faith in our churches and parishes today requires much, much more than the seminary alone can provide: management of parish facilities and physical plants; interaction with and supervision of large staffs, both employees and volunteers; budget preparation, fiscal management and financial accountability,” wrote Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., when he announced the clerkship program in 2015. … “If we can equip new priests with a ‘little more’ confidence in approaching all the many tasks at hand, the needs of our people might be more efficiently and effectively met.
“These days were designed to expose our seminarians to the ‘practical side’ of pastoral work in our parishes, since they already receive great theological and spiritual formation in the various seminaries we use,” Bishop O’Connell said in discussing the inaugural program last year.
The program included offerings organized and arranged according to the seminarian’s year and class, so that diocesan seminarians will move through the curriculum and encounter more complex topics as they progress in their studies. Upon successful completion of the theology students’ three-year plan of study, they will be awarded a Certificate in Church Management from Villanova.
In an interview about the program in 2015, Charles Zech, faculty director for the Center for Church Management, noted that priests are being assigned pastors at a younger age than in the past, which means they will be confronted with a range of duties and responsibilities early in their priesthood.
“Pastors have a threefold charge – teaching, sanctifying and governance,” he said, noting that the third component involves a fair amount of business and management strategy and practice. “The Church is not a business, but we do have stewardship responsibilities.”