A FORMATIVE MEETING WITH FR. AMEDEO CENCINI
From the time we started learning online with the professors the development has been effective so much that it is helping us to prepare well for our forthcoming examinations. On 8th May we had a formation class online with Fr. Amedeo Cencini. He is a Canossian religious professor at the Pontifical Salesian and Gregorian University in Rome. Since February 2019 he has been a member of the Presidency Council of the National Service for the Protection of Minors established by the Italian Episcopal Conference. His conference dealt precisely with the protection of minors, a current urgency in society and in the Church. He encouraged us who are under formation to profit well this time and to continue with permanent formation even after our ordination so as to live well our chastity at every stage of life, bearing in mind that sexual tendency does not go in pension. He went on calling us to a personal and collective responsibility towards preventing abuses.
His conference dealt precisely with the protection of minors, a current urgency in society and in the Church. He encouraged us who are under formation to profit well this time and to continue with permanent formation even after our ordination so as to live well our chastity at every stage of life, bearing in mind that sexual tendency does not go in pension. He went on calling us to a personal and collective responsibility towards preventing abuses.
He encouraged us to develop a priestly lifestyle that resolutely seeks holiness, service to souls and merciful attention to the most needy. Thus one can avoid that mediocrity that leads one to remain in the priesthood but without being truly faithful to the vocation; to perhaps maintain continence, but without that vibrant love that should characterize a well-lived celibacy; to seek, even unconsciously, compensations of various kinds, because the life one is leading does not satisfy.
He concluded his talk with these words: “Dear seminarians be on your guard against the demon of mediocrity”. We are very grateful for his presentation on this important topic, which was at once clear, profound and passionate.