Sydney
6 April 2003
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Peace ... harmony
Rugby league scores a try in a GPS college
Passing the baton
Peaceful action for peace
Catholic Weekly takes a holiday over Easter
Tissue project wins archbishop’s grant
A voice for the disabled
Faith centre moves
Younger set is 50
Fr Chris is guest
Ecumenical Stations of the Cross in wetlands
US move welcomed on partial birth abortion
Project Compassion 2003 - Leyte farmers can face better future
Editorial - Victims of war
Letters - Ash Wednesday
Conversation - Fr Patrick Byrne, Rome-based head of Children’s Mission: Big project or small, ‘it must be for kids’
Voice of Youth - Renaissance of thinking about the Middle Ages
Celebrate Love? Live it to the ‘max’
Heading off conflict before it hits crisis point
Crucifixion story wouldn’t go away
New home for new breed of priest
Christian Brothers spread social justice net
Luke’s Story wins award
300 at social justice forum
Music lets Andrew ‘share my faith’ ...
New home for new breed of priest
The first seminarians of Redemptoris Mater Sydney with the rector, Fr
Eric Skruzny (second from left)
“I was in the middle of my career when God called me to the priesthood,” says José-Miguel Guerra Jimenez, 29.
He was 26 years old and had a degree in mechanical engineering, a job and a girlfriend.
“I wanted to get married and have a family. So at the beginning I said ‘no’. I fought against God,” he says.
“For a long time I was unable to pray.”
José had been a member of the Neocatechumenate spiritual lay movement since the age of 14 through his parish in the Canary Islands.
He was a pilgrim in Israel with other young people from Neocatechumenate communities during the Pope’s visit there in 2000. That’s when he finally stood up and admitted he wanted to take steps towards the priesthood.
“I thought that I would feel angry, but I actually felt so relieved,” he says.
“I was even happy; I did not understand why.
“But it is true what St Paul says, that when God asks difficult things he not only gives you the strength to do them but gives you joy.”
José is one of nine seminarians, aged 19 to mid 30s, in the new Redemptoris Mater Archdiocesan Missionary Seminary, Sydney, which is located in the former Marist Brothers presbytery at Pagewood.
All but one of the seminarians are from neocatechu-menate communities in Spain, South America or Italy.
The odd man out is Australian Malcolm Clark, 38, who is gently teased about being the “foreigner”.
Malcolm, a computer programmer, joined the neocatechumenate community at St Fiacre’s Leichhardt.
It was only through the community, he says, that he saw that “my Catholic faith could actually mature with me”.
So when he decided to be a priest, it was always going to be as a missionary.
The priests who come out of the movement are a new breed of priest.
They are ordained for a diocese, but are missionary priests for the renewal of Catholic faith - the Pope’s ‘new evangelisation’ - available for work anywhere.
“Without the Neocatechumenal Way I would have left the Church, like all my friends have,” says José, “not just because it is the Neocatechumenal Way, but because it brings you into contact with the Word of God, you have catechesis and it helps you live a life of faith.”
The seminary’s inaugural rector, Fr Eric Skruzny, was the vice rector and dean of studies for Perth’s Redemptoris Mater Seminary, the first in Australia, when it opened in 1994.
He was born in Melbourne, of Czech parents, and became involved with the Neocate-chumenates in his parish when he was 17.
He was 26 and a local government town planner when he quit his job to go to the Solomon Islands as an itinerant catechist.
He joined the first Redemptoris Mater Seminary when it opened in Rome in 1987.
“Traditionally, to become a missionary priest, one joined a missionary religious order,” he says. “But I was not really attracted to any of those.
This new seminary opening up at the time in Rome was a novelty because it was both diocesan and missionary.”
Now in Sydney Fr Eric will ensure that the first crop of seminarians undergoes the same process as the regular diocesan seminarians and will study alongside them at the Catholic Institute of Sydney in Strathfield.
They will receive additional formation and support from their Neocatechumenate communities here - in Leichhardt and Baulkham Hills.
Towards the end of their seven years of study each of the seminarians will be sent on a mission, in Australia or abroad, as part of a team with a priest and lay people.
Once ordained, they will be priests of the Sydney Archdiocese and will spend two years working in parishes before being assigned a placement by the archbishop.
“They may continue to work in Sydney, or go elsewhere, depending on what the needs are ... but will be missionary priests, ready to be sent wherever they are needed in the world,” says Fr Eric.
“It will remain to be seen what are the needs, what are the requests at the time.”
Sydney parishes have been slow to embrace the Neocatechumenal Way, he says. But, with the opening of the seminary, more parish priests have shown an interest.
Fr Eric hopes the seminary will grow to 40 or 50 seminarians over the next 10 years.
The seminarians need help to cover their education, meals, transport, clothing and medical expenses, as well as help with funds for a permanent residence.
“It goes against my nature to ask for money and support, but I have seen the joy it gives to benefactors when they participate,” says Fr Eric.
He especially asks Catholics to pray for this new venture of the archdiocese.
Send donations to: Fr Eric Skruzny, 415 Bunnerong Rd, Pagewood. Call (02) 9315 5256 or fax (02) 9315 5230.