Historic seminary grant reaping success

News of the Diocese

July 10, 2024

Historic seminary grant reaping success Saint Mary Seminary in Wickliffe is part of an exciting new endeavor designed to enrich the training and formation of future ministerial leaders across the globe. The program stems from a five-year, $1 million grant the seminary received from the Lilly Endowment in 2021 as part of an initiative to help theological schools across the U.S. and Canada prepare pastoral leaders for service in Christian congregations.

President-Rector of Saint Mary Seminary, Fr. Andrew Turner, wrote Cleveland’s proposal upon which the grant was awarded, and says it stands as one of the largest grants received by the seminary in recent history. The goal is to assist parishes with tools and resources to make the field time that seminarians, deaconate candidates and lay ministers for pastoral leadership spend in local parishes as valuable as possible.

“Our parishes are vital in forming our future ministerial leaders because it is in the parishes where they will eventually serve,” said. Fr. Turner. “This is an important way to help us continue to improve the quality of our church leaders.”

Historic seminary grant reaping success Fr. Turner says the project has now entered the implementation phase and includes the launch of a global pastoral supervisor certification program. It is designed to help pastors and pastoral leaders who supervise candidates for ministerial leadership during parish field assignments be better equipped to evaluate and guide the candidates. The curriculum for the new training program includes tool kits and resources developed in Cleveland during the first two years of the grant.

Nine local priests along with one deacon and two pastoral ministers from the diocese will be part of the pilot group participating in the first supervisor training program set to begin next month in Chicago. They will be joined by 48 priests and pastoral leaders from dioceses across the country as well as Scotland.

Historic seminary grant reaping success

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