The New Bishops Receive Training

As reported by Vatican News, these days of studies brought together 114 bishops from dioceses under the authority of the Dicastery for Evangelization, and 153 bishops from 46 countries, most of them under the authority of the Dicastery for Bishops, except for 25 under the authority of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches.

The religious news agency Fides reports that the session took place at the Pontifical Urban University, the Pontifical College of St. Peter and the Pontifical College of St. Paul: the Secretariat of State presented a report on the Holy See's action in the world, then various courses were given on the themes of “Living the Episcopal Mission in a Synodal Church” and on the apostolate of the laity.

Study seminars for new bishops are nothing new: they were inaugurated in 1994, during the pontificate of Pope John Paul II (1978-2005), specifically for new bishops from what are considered mission countries, under what is now the Dicastery for Evangelization.

Since then, however, the training sessions have evolved to include all new bishops—most of whom report to the Dicastery for Bishops. Officially, as Vatican News explains, “The organizers expressed that these are ‘intense days, filled with moments of formation and communion,’ offering the new bishops an immersive experience of the episcopal collegiality, one that fosters both affectionate and effective unity with the Successor of Peter.”

Beyond the de rigueur diplomatic language, there's the stakes of such meetings: with the general decline in the level of episcopal personnel—it is no longer required today to have a doctorate in theology or canon law to receive the episcopacy—it is more than urgent to provide training on the current issues of managing a dwindling clergy or abuses in dioceses.

Above all, the growing fragmentation of the Church, which emerged in the wake of the post-Council years and was made glaringly obvious during the recent phases of the Synod of Bishops—not to mention the reception of the Declaration Fiducia supplicans—has prompted the current Roman Pontiff to attempt to unify an increasingly disparate college of bishops. Hence the emphasis placed on synodality in the formation sessions over the past few years.

In the various official reports on the 2024 version of this seminar for new bishops, it is worth noting the absence of courses on faith and its transmission, on morality, all notions that are essential to their mission, as the 1917 Code of Canon Law clearly recalled:

“To ensure the preservation of sound and orthodox doctrine; [...] to protect good morals and correct bad ones; [...] to promote among the people and the clergy peace, innocence, piety and discipline [and] to ensure in general the good of religion” (can. 343-1).