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Catholic Bishops Conference In Belarus: Training Of Priests Is Internal Affair Of Church

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Catholic Bishops Conference In Belarus: Training Of Priests Is Internal Affair Of Church
Photo: catholicnews.org.uk

Conference of Catholic Bishops of Belarus responded to the criticism of the authorities.

The criticism was voiced by Leanid Huliaka, the Commissioner on Religious and Ethnic Affairs of Belarus, on Februaru 2.

In particular, the official said that the Roman Catholic Church in Belarus, “is not active enough when it comes to personel training”.

He chided the Church that not a single priest graduated from the Pinsk seminary in 2015, and “there is not even a single student in the Catholic theological academy established in 2015”.

“As the result, there’s a severe staff shortage and the Roman Catholic priests are to be invited from abroad,” – Huliaka said. He added that the foreign priests have poor command of the state languages of Belarus and rarely use them during the church services and this is what the parishioners complain about.

Official statement of the Catholic Church is published on catholic.by portal.

According to this statement, issues related to the recent statements by Leonid Huliaka were discussed on the 62th plenary meeting of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Minsk on February 4.

“Training of priests is an internal matter of the Church. The church cares about its own future (by the way, 19 students have enrolled in the seminaries of Belarus and monachal seminaries abroad this year) and all accusations of lack of interest and lack of "personnel management" brought against it are baseless,” – the document states.

In addition, the Catholic hierarchs noted that the John Paul II Theological Academy has just been registered and now it addresses the issues of buying land and constructing the Academy building. “After that the Academy will start functioning and this is also the internal matter of the Church,” – the statement informs.

“Other issues raised by Mr. Huliaka can be discussed during personal meeting of the Conference of Catholic Bishops in Belarus with the Commissioner on Religious and Ethnic Affairs “, - the authors of the document stressed.

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