Patriarchal Seminary of Rachol
CATHOLICISM IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE - a report
INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON
CATHOLICISM IN THE WORLD OF SCIENCE
17-20 DECEMBER, 2010
PATRIARCHAL SEMINARY,
RACHOL, GOA, INDIA
IN COLLABORATION WITH PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE. VATICAN , DIVISION OF HUMANITIES OF ST. JOHN’S UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, AND INDIAN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND RELIGION, PUNE
CONSOLIDATED REPORT
The International conference, ‘Catholicism in the World of Science’, was organized to commemorate the 400 year anniversary of the foundation of the seminary in Rachol, India. This great institution has served and continues to serve the church and society in very many ways. At the dawn of the fourth centenary, the eventful dynamism the seminary became a tremendous occasion to re-energize and work to build a new synergy in the entire seminary community and the church in Goa.
Celebrating the Fourth centenary of Rachol seminary
Somehow time becomes intense as one enters the portals of the great Rachol Seminary. The ancient Seminary overflows with spirit and grace and embraces everyone with serenity and peace. It is a place where the sound of silence is heard and the depth of spiritual insight glows bright. Blessed with splendor and majesty, it nurtures all its inmates with maternal love and care. Its angelic spiritual ambience and brilliant intellectual climate produces a synergy that draws all her sons to become ever more like the Lord Jesus Christ.
LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI TO SEMINARIANS
LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS BENEDICT XVI
TO SEMINARIANS
Dear Seminarians,
When in December 1944 I was drafted for military service, the company commander asked each of us what we planned to do in the future. I answered that I wanted to become a Catholic priest. The lieutenant replied: “Then you ought to look for something else. In the new Germany priests are no longer needed”. I knew that this “new Germany” was already coming to an end, and that, after the enormous devastation which that madness had brought upon the country, priests would be needed more than ever. Today the situation is completely changed. In different ways, though, many people nowadays also think that the Catholic priesthood is not a “job” for the future, but one that belongs more to the past. You, dear friends, have decided to enter the seminary and to prepare for priestly ministry in the Catholic Church in spite of such opinions and objections. You have done a good thing. Because people will always have need of God, even in an age marked by technical mastery of the world and globalization: they will always need the God who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, the God who gathers us together in the universal Church in order to learn with him and through him life’s true meaning and in order to uphold and apply the standards of true humanity. Where people no longer perceive God, life grows empty; nothing is ever enough. People then seek escape in euphoria and violence; these are the very things that increasingly threaten young people. God is alive. He has created every one of us and he knows us all. He is so great that he has time for the little things in our lives: “Every hair of your head is numbered”. God is alive, and he needs people to serve him and bring him to others. It does makes sense to become a priest: the world needs priests, pastors, today, tomorrow and always, until the end of time.
Rachol Seminary and Music
Anything beautiful easily catches our attention. Beauty is something real and inspiring. Pope John Paul II has described the intricate connection between beauty and good: “Beauty is the visible form of the good; the good is the metaphysical condition of beauty” (Letter to artists). Whatever is good and beautiful is enhanced by art. Art is an important vehicle through which the beauty and the goodness in the world are given expression and their subtlety unravelled. An artist who engages in such an inspiring task mirrors the image of God, the Master Artist, who is the source and origin of all beauty and goodness.
Golden Verse
Proverbs 11:17
