From The Church Under Siege Department:

Two dispatches from the front lines:

Apostolic visitation of all U.S. seminaries to start this fall
(Thanks to Catholic News Service via WND.)

The Vatican-run apostolic visitation of U.S. Catholic seminaries and houses of priestly formation will begin late this September.

Archbishop Edwin F. O'Brien of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, who will coordinate the visits, announced details of the plan Aug. 19.

Sparked by the sexual abuse crisis that hit the U.S. church in 2002, the visitations will pay special attention to areas such as the quality of the seminarians' human and spiritual formation for living chastely and of their intellectual formation for faithfulness to church teachings, especially in the area of moral theology.

Amen to that.

The Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, which oversees seminary formation around the world, has appointed 117 bishops and seminary personnel as visitors. They are to visit each college- or theology-level institution, working in teams of three for smaller programs or four for the larger ones.

The education congregation developed the visitation program in collaboration with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. About one-third of U.S. seminarians in graduate studies are preparing to be priests in religious orders.

In selecting the visitors the congregation consulted with the Conference of Major Superiors of Men and the Committee on Priestly Formation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Archbishop O'Brien is to appoint resource people, including deacons, religious and lay people, to assist in the visitation process and participate in visits to the larger institutions.

The visitation teams are to review documentation of an institution beforehand and may interview students, faculty, staff and recent alumni during the on-site visit.

Last year there were 229 U.S. seminaries or formation houses at the college or theology level. They had a total of 4,556 students: 3,308 at the theology level and 1,248 in college. A seminary covers all aspects of formation including the academic. For students in a house of formation, the academic program is run by a neighboring college, university or theological consortium.

Archbishop O'Brien said he was confident that the visitations "will assist us in promoting the highest standards of formation necessary to bring forth qualified men for priestly ordination."


Nun's wild dancing earns her a reprimand
(From RotoReuters via WND.)

A Belgian nun's acrobatic and indecorous dancing with a missionary during the Catholic World Youth Day in Germany over the weekend earned her a reprimand from her mother superior, a Belgian paper said Tuesday.

Daily Het Laatste Nieuws showed pictures of a dancing Johanne Vertommen being held up in the air by the missionary, and then clinging to him with her legs wrapped around his body.

"I wouldn't do this at home but at such occasions I get carried away by the enthusiasm of the group," the 29-year-old told the paper later.

"My mother superior raised the issue today: she thinks I should watch out a bit and bear in mind that I represent our community," Vertommen said.

Pope Benedict attended the celebration at the Marienfeld, outside Cologne, in the presence of some 700,000 people.