RECTORS: MEN OF HUMAN RELATIONS, COMMUNION AND PRAYER

VATICAN CITY, FEB 17, 2000 (VIS) - The participants in the annual conference of rectors of English-speaking seminaries in Europe were welcomed by the Holy Father this morning who, in his talk to them, stressed that they must be men of solid human relations, communion and prayer.

"Your particular duties as rectors," the Pope pointed out, "are characterized by your relationship with the bishops who send men to you for preparation in priestly service, with the staff who assist in the formation of the seminarians, with the students entrusted to your care and supervision, with the presbyterate and the diocesan communities where these men will eventually serve as priests. Thus it is clear that you must be men of solid human relations on all levels - ecclesiastical, academic and spiritual - and that you must be men of communion."

"In all of this it is most important that you should be men of prayer, true disciples of Jesus Christ," John Paul II added. "First and foremost among your duties and responsibilities, in fact the foundation upon which all of them stand, is your own faithful witness to an active life of prayer." By instilling this same spirit in the seminarians, he observed, you will give the Church "priests who have learned to put themselves constantly in the Lord's presence - speaking to Him, listening to Him, being taught by Him, being loved by Him - so that they in turn can do the same for others."

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