PASTORAL FORMATION PROGRAM
The theoretical part of the program includes the theology of proclamation, formal homiletics, and theory of Catechetics, applied sociology, communication, counselling and administration. Pre-supposed are other courses offered in the seminary curriculum, such as General Psychology, Sociology and Anthropology on the one hand, and Christology, Ecclesiology and Liturgy on the other.
The practical aspect of the program comprises teaching Catechetics, preparing liturgies and paraliturgies in the schools, visiting the hospitals, prisons, aged, and crippled children. The students are taught the practical use of mass media and the traditional course in the administration of the sacraments. They are also expected to do some preaching both in and out of the seminary.
Furthermore, a full year is spent away from the seminary especially for pastoral training and formation in the student's home diocese. This year, known as the Pastoral Training and Formation Year, is normally carried out in the fifth year of the student's academic formation.

Pastoral Training and Formation Year
The pastoral training and formation of diocesan students during this year is carried out under the supervision of the Diocesan Coordinator whom each bishop appoints for his own diocese. The Coordinator sees to it that sufficient and useful opportunities are offered to the students not only to experience the actual situation to which they will eventually return, but also to learn from that experience through a process of reflection.
The Diocesan Coordinator is responsible not only for those students on pastoral year, but also for all the students when they return home for the holidays. The Coordinator works in very close collaboration with the pastoral formation team at PRS. It is their co-responsibility to ascertain the progressive pastoral formation of the students as they gradually come closer to priestly ordination.
There is a separate Handbook prepared for the Pastoral Training and Formation Year program, which provides guidelines for the Diocesan Pastoral Coordinators and Supervisors, as well as for the students. This handbook is prepared by the PRS Pastoral Coordinator and distributed to all Diocesan students, their Supervisors and Bishops. The handbook is also available to Congregations upon request.
Following the Pastoral Year and at the beginning of the new academic year, Year VI students return to the Seminary a week before lectures begin to spend time reflecting theologically on the experiences of their pastoral training and formation year. This reflection program is called Year VI Orientation Seminar.
The individual’s experience, whether it be personal or pastoral, is the starting point for this reflection. The purpose of this reflection is to help students come to a clearer understanding of:
• themselves as ministers,
• how they relate to people,
• their ministerial strengths and weaknesses,
• and their areas of need and growth.
It is hoped that by listening to the experiences of others they will discover alternative ways of ministering. Through the help of the facilitator, the participants are led to integrate theory and practice.
The program is always subject to re-examination and revision. It is, in fact, envisaged that each year, or at the most every two years, the Diocesan Coordinators would meet for this purpose. In this way, the diocese is aware of the kind of formation its students are receiving in the seminary. Conversely, the seminary is kept constantly in touch with the actual needs of the diocese it sets out to serve.

Pastoral Formation Team: Fr. ‘Okusitino Ulupano (coordinator), Fr. Donald Melteras, Fr. Augustine Kim MSC.