Last Monday Pope Francis held a colloquium with seminarians and priests studying in Rome. One of the questions he answered had to do with the spiritual direction of priests. For its interest, we reproduce the complete transcript of his answer, in which he differentiates between the confessor and the spiritual director and explains why the latter can be a lay person.
Question: How would you advise priests, especially young priests, to seek this spiritual help for their formation?
Pope Francis' response:
"The question of spiritual direction - today we use more of a less directive term, 'spiritual accompaniment', which I like - is spiritual direction, spiritual accompaniment, obligatory? No, it is not obligatory, but if you don't have someone to help you walk, you will fall and make noise. Sometimes it is important to be accompanied by someone who knows my life, and it is not necessary for him to be the confessor; sometimes he goes, but the important thing is that they are two different roles.
You go to your confessor to have your sins forgiven and to prepare yourself for your sins. You go to your spiritual director to tell him about the things that are going on in your heart, your spiritual emotions, your joys, your anger and what is going on inside you. If you relate only to the confessor and not to the spiritual director, you will not know how to grow. If you only relate to a spiritual director, a companion, and you don't go to confess your sins, that is also wrong.
They are two different rolesIn the schools of spirituality, for example that of the Jesuits, St. Ignatius says that it is better to distinguish between them, that one is the confessor and the other the spiritual director. Sometimes it is the same thing but they are two different things, that maybe one person does, but two different things.
Second. Spiritual direction is not a clerical charism, it is a baptismal charism. The priests who do spiritual direction have the charism not because they are priests, but because they are lay people, because they are baptized. I know that there are some in the Curia, perhaps some of you, who do spiritual direction with a nun who is good, who teaches at the Gregorian, she is good and she is the spiritual director. See, no problem, she is a woman of spiritual wisdom who knows how to direct.
Some movements may have a secular wisdom. I say this because it is not a priestly charism. It can be a priest, but it is not exclusively for priests. And being a spiritual director requires a great anointing. So, to your question, I would say: first of all, tthe certainty that I must be accompanied, always with the. Because the person who is not accompanied in life generates "fungi" in the soul, the fungi that then bother you. Diseases, dirty loneliness, so many bad things. I need to be accompanied. Clarify things. Search for spiritual emotions, someone to help me understand them, what does the Lord want with this, where is the temptation... (...)
I don't know if I have answered. It is something important. May what I am saying now serve at least so that none of you will be left from now on without spiritual direction, without spiritual accompaniment, because you will not grow well, I say this from experienceIs it clear, is it clear to everyone?
