La dimensión humana de la formación sacerdotal en el Decreto conciliar Optatam Totius

Abstract

Vatican II's Decree Optatam Totius is the most authoritative statement of the Church's Magisterium on priestly formation in the 20 th century, and so is the inescapable reference point for any theme relating to the delicate task of forming future priests. Because of this, when we come to study the human dimension of priestly formation under the present discipline, we have to return to the genesis and development of the Decree in order to understand, at first hand, the fundamental principles on which its doctrine is based and the options adopted by the Council Fathers in the course of their discussions, many of which were highly significant when the promulgated text emerged. The article goes back to the sources, uses them to reconstruct the history of the Decree, selects from among all the possible material those aspects which refer specifically to human formation and only making reference to other dimensions of formation in a tangential way when relevant to the theme of human formation. The study concludes with some observations of a general character and some concrete applications from the point of view of Canon Law.