Roman Colleges

Note: This article is based on the "Catholic Encyclopedia" 1913 and contains a large amount of out-dated information throughout, including the numbers of students. Specifically, many of the practices and forms of dress described changed dramatically during the 1960s. See also Pontifical university.

The Roman Colleges, also referred to as the Pontifical Colleges in Rome, are institutions established and maintained in Rome for the education of future ecclesiastics of the Roman Catholic Church. Traditionally many were for students of a particular nationality. The colleges are halls of residence in which the students follow the usual seminary exercises of piety, study in private, and review the subjects treated in class. In some colleges there are special courses of instruction (languages, music, archaeology, etc.) but the regular courses in philosophy and theology are given in a few large central institutions, such as Pontifical Urbaniana University, the Pontifical Gregorian University, the Pontifical Lateran University, and the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum.

The Roman colleges, in addition to the obvious advantages for study which Rome offers, also serve in a certain measure to keep up in the various countries of the world that spirit of loyal attachment to the Holy See which is the basis of unity. With this end in view the popes have encouraged the founding of colleges in which young men of the same nationality might reside and at the same time profit by the opportunities which the city affords.

The rector of the Kraków seminary, in bidding Karol Wojtyla farewell, said that theology can be learned elsewhere, but a priest in Rome must 'learn Rome itself'.

Each national college has as its head a rector designated by the episcopate of the country to which the college belongs and appointed by the pope. He is assisted by a vice-rector and a spiritual director.

Most colleges follow similar academic programs during the year, but variations will be found, and these are due chiefly to natural characteristics or to the special purpose for which the college was established.

The scholastic year begins in the first week of November and ends in June. In most of the courses the lecture system is followed and at stated times formal disputations are held in accordance with scholastic methods. The course of studies, whether leading to a degree or not, is prescribed and it extends, generally speaking, through six years, two of which are devoted to philosophy and four to theology. To philosophy in the stricter sense are added courses in mathematics, languages, and natural sciences. Theology includes, besides dogmatic and moral theology, courses in liturgy, archaeology, Church history, canon law and Scripture.

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