MARGAO: The Dicastery of Culture and Education in Rome has established the Good Shepherd Institute of Theology at Rachol Seminary, offering seminarians the chance to earn a BA degree in Theology (Baccalaureate of Theology) upon completing the three-year course.
This new institute, affiliated with the Faculty of Theology at Jnana Deepa in Pune, revives the academic degree after over nine decades.
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This development is expected to facilitate admissions for the BA degree holders into universities offering Licentiate degrees. Originally starting as a Catechetical School and a Primary School in Portuguese and Konkani for European missionaries, the Rachol Seminary later evolved into a School for Moral Theology.
In 1887, Pope Leo XIII granted the seminary the authority to confer the academic degree of Bachelor of Theology, a privilege it exercised for forty-four years. However, in 1931, changes in the rules by Pope Pius XI dictated that academic degrees in Theology could only be awarded by canonically established and approved Universities or Faculties. As a result, the seminary lost its authority to confer degrees. Despite this setback, there remained a strong desire to reinstate the conferral of an Ecclesiastical degree, but fulfilling several conditions was necessary.
In 2013, on the advice of Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrão, the then Rector Rev Aleixo Menezes took the initiative to seek affiliation with the Jnana Deepa Institute of Philosophy and Theology.
After ensuring that the seminary’s teachers were qualified and assessing the infrastructure, the Jnana Deepa Institute guided them through the affiliation process and recommended aligning the syllabus with their own. Recent changes in norms by Pope Francis required the separation of the academic programme from the seminary.
