In a meeting with Polish Jesuits, Pope Francis worried that too many seminaries teach a rigid list of rules that make it difficult or impossible for priests to respond to the real-life situations of those who come to them seeking guidance. “Some priestly formation programs run the risk of educating in the light of overly clear and distinct ideas, and therefore to act within limits and criteria that are rigidly defined a priori, and that set aside concrete situations,” the pope said during a meeting with 28 Polish Jesuits in Krakow during World Youth Day on July 30. The pope asked the Jesuits to begin an outreach to diocesan seminaries and diocesan priests, sharing with them the prayerful and careful art of discernment as taught by St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits. “The church today needs to grow in the ability of spiritual discernment,” the pope said. Without “the wisdom of discernment,” he said, “the seminarians, when they become priests, find themselves in difficulty in accompanying the life of so many young people and adults.”

This article appears in September 12 2016.