Fourth Synod Compiled Acts, Declarations and Statutes

A RTICLE 8. H OLY O RDERS

119. On one Sunday each year, as specified by the local Ordinary, at all Masses a homily should be given on vocations to the priesthood, to the diaconate and to the religious life. Priests from outside the Diocese of Springfield in Illinois are to secure written permission from the Director of the Office for Vocations or the Office of the Chancellor before speaking on vocations in this Diocese. 120. Priests should instruct and encourage parents to foster vocations among their children. All priests, especially pastors, as well as deacons and all the lay Christian faithful, shall see that children who show signs of a religious vocation are carefully encouraged to consider that God may be calling them to priesthood or religious life. They shall train such youths in piety, give them instructions and foster in them the seed of the divine vocation. 121. Pastors have a grave obligation to exercise vigilant supervision over seminarians residing in their parishes during vacations or pastoral internships and to send an accurate, honest report on their moral conduct and manner of life to the seminaries or vocation director when so requested. 122. a) Matrimony, as a vocation by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life and which is ordered to the procreation and education of children, is closely related to the discipleship and stewardship way of life. 82 b) Personal preparation for entering marriage for an adequate period of time according to diocesan policy is required of all engaged couples so that through such preparation the parties may be predisposed toward the holiness and duties of their new state of marriage in Christ. 83 In order for spouses to become truly capable of making a sincere gift of themselves 84 in the marital embrace and of being disciples and stewards of the Lord, the giver of life, all married couples are called to learn how to chart their combined fertility through scientific Natural A RTICLE 9. M ATRIMONY

82 Cf. c. 1055.

83 Cf. c. 1063, n. 2.

84 Cf. Gaudium et spes n. 24.

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