THE NEW RATIO FUNDAMENTALIS IN THE FORMATION OF PRIESTS AND RELIGIOUS IN AFRICA

Abstract

The process of building or preparing priests and religious for the service of God and humanity is called priestly or religious formation. The Church through the Congregation for Clergy finds it fitting that priestly formation be taken seriously, revamped, renewed and restored according to historical, socio-cultural and ecclesiastical conditions. The opening line of the Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis (RFIS) reads: “The gift of the priestly vocation, placed by God in the hearts of some men, obliges the Church to propose to them a serious journey of formation.”1 The Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis in other words, “The Gift of Priestly Vocation” was promulgated January 6, 1970 to provide guidelines for the formation of priests and religious. It was amended March 19, 1985 by the Congregation for Catholic Education in the light of the promulgation of the Code of Canon Law (25 January 1983). The new RFIS prepared by the congregation for Clergy was published on December 8, 2016 considering the ecclesiastical and sociocultural changes