Zasady formacji w Stowarzyszeniu Apostolstwa Katolickiego oraz ich zastosowanie w Wyższym Seminarium Duchownym w Ożarowie Mazowieckim (1945-1993)

Abstract

The question of formation in the Society of Catholic Apostleship has been the concern of each General Chapter (or Assembly, as it is called after Vatican Council II), Each General Board as the executive body, each Provincial Board. It was similarly in the Polish Province of Christ the King of the Society of Catholic Apostleship. Their members were popularly called Pallotins, after the name of St. Wincenty Pallotti (1795-1850), who set up this congregation of priests and friars in order to encourage the laity to universal apostleship. The problem was two formative ways, that is the traditional one and the so-called organic ascetism, propagated by the Apostolic Movement from Szensztat, until 1965, a movement which remained within the Society. As a result of the efforts to unify the formation was the Ratio educandi societatis Apostolatus Catholici signed by Rev. Wilhelm Moehler SAC, the general of the Society, on 1st July 1963. Hence it was during Vatican Council II and a few months after St. Wincenty Pallotti had been canonized (20th January 1963). The Second Vatican Council put the whole formative process in a different perspective, adjusting it to new pastoral requirements. The Extraordinary General Chapter dealt with this issue; it took place in Rome at the turn of 1968 and 1969. Eventually, the General Board approved the „General guidelines of formation in the introductory period” on 20th March 1987, and on 9th June 1989 the „Guidelines of the sacerdotal formation of philosophy and theology students in the Society of Catholic Apostleship” The paper has not dealt with the formation at all the stages of „religious” life, but only with the formation in the Theological Seminary of the Society in Ożarów Mazowiecki, the former Oltarzew. New trends has been noticed, that is some other things are stressed in the formative process after Vatican Council II.