Cardinal Fernando Filoni Concludes Pastoral Visit to South Korea

Meets with Seminarians and Formators on Final Leg of Visit

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On the final leg of his pastoral visit to South Korea, Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, meet with seminarians on Saturday. Cardinal Filoni visited the Asian peninsula to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the creation of the Diocese of Suwon.

According to Fides News Agency, the Cardinal greeted the seminarians and formators of South Korea, who expressed his joy that over 1,500 men are preparing for the priestly ministry.

“The time that you spend in the Seminary is a time of discernment, of orientation, and of preparation for the service of God and the Church. In this context, I want to highlight the responsibility that falls to your Bishops and formators, who may not give to this duty only a small part of their time or a partial attention,” Cardinal Filoni said.

The Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples emphasized the characteristics necessary for the priesthood, noting the importance of prayer, charity and love of the Gospel.  

“Not, therefore, bureaucrats or administrators of religious questions like any other non-governmental organization (NGO), not ideologues of an evangelical message of a type socialized according to a reading consonant with political and social sciences; even less a sort of immanent and self-referential psychiatrist, deprived of transcendence and sense of mission; and even less a kind of elitist, that is, standing far away from reality in a context of disembodied pessimism, far away from God and from humanity,” Cardinal Filoni stressed.

Concluding his address, Cardinal Filoni encouraged the seminarians, saying that they represented “the hope of the Church in Korea, a Church that is alive and very much admired in the Catholic world.”

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