The effort shall be made to give the young men a complete instruction, one concise and more nutritive than that of the interminable years of unnecessary dissertations and fruitless “therefores,” with which the Roman priests feed the best years of our youth.
The plan of studies shall be based on the principle that we must begin to learn the most necessary, secondly, the most useful, and thirdly, the sciences that ought to always adorn the worthy priests of God. The plan recommended in the fourth epistle of our church shall be followed.
But knowledge will be vain and useless in a priest, if he is not adorned with the Christian virtues of holiness, altruism, obedience, and zeal for the greater glory of God. Consequently, the young men shall be instructed in the practice of an ascetic and disciplined life, and they shall become accustomed to prayer, the sacraments, and the exercises of evangelization.
Adjoined to the seminaries, the effort shall be made to create Catholic schools and colleges for both sexes. Thus the selection of priests will become more easy; and furthermore, [this shall be done] inasmuch as it is of great importance for us to teach the divine teachings of Jesus Christ and the redeeming doctrines of our church to the children.
[Pp. 42, 43, of the same rules, contain the following:]
The chief bishop shall contrive ways and means, now by imposing a tax among the parish priests, now by begging alms for the support and creation of Catholic seminaries and colleges, which are very necessary for the propagation and defense of our church; as well as to comply with our most sacred obligation of evangelizing the heathen tribes, and satisfy other considerations of the subsecretaryship of the propaganda of the faith.
In all other things not covered by these rules, the chief bishop shall have power to decree, provided that he do not violate the spirit of the same, after obtaining the opinion of the superior economical Council.
[The plan of studies above-mentioned is found on pp. 67, 68, of the same book, and is as follows:]
5. The diocesan committees shall exert their efforts very earnestly in creating with all haste, seminaries, in order to be able to provide all the parishes with young and learned priests, since the scarcity of priests is the principal pretext of the Roman priests, in order that they may introduce foreign priests here. They shall endeavor to attract as great a number of students as possible, with the assurance that in two years’ time only they will be given a complete, concise, and more nutritive instruction than the interminable years of unnecessary dissertations and fruitless “therefores” with which the friars feed the best years of our young men, in order by that method to hinder the multiplication and true education of our priests.
The plan of studies which shall be followed for the present shall be as follows: