Cardinal Cobo opens the new academic year at Madrid's Conciliar Seminary
Cardinal José Cobo told 108 seminarians and their formators that priestly formation is not an academic degree but a path built in real relationships within the community
The Conciliar Seminary of Madrid opened its academic year on September 16, 2026, with a Mass celebrated by Cardinal José Cobo, the archbishop of Madrid. In his homily he addressed the 108 seminarians and formators present, building it around one question: "What does God want of us for this world?" Cobo urged them to widen the way they look at their own vocation and to open it to its community dimension.
The seminary is not an academic degree program, Cobo said, but a path on which God acts on each person and on the whole Church. Every seminarian, he said, receives gifts and charisms that are meant to be placed at the service of others. He turned to St. Paul to make the point: "you can have the greatest faith in all Christendom, but if love is missing, it is time wasted."
Formation in real relationships
Priestly formation is built in relationships with formators, fellow seminarians, priests and parish communities along the way, the cardinal said. "They are not add-ons to formation, they are part of the vocation," Cobo said. Living together, listening and working as a team are not optional extras, he said, but part of what makes a future priest.
Cobo also asked the seminarians to learn to recognize God's rhythm and to discern his action at each moment. That requires a spirituality open to prayer and to those who accompany them on the way, he said. "It is a matter of listening and discerning," he said, adding that a priest has to be able to identify how God is at work and to work with others to build community.
Reunions and a community celebration
After the Mass, the seminary returned to its ordinary community routine. Reunions among seminarians, formators and priests set the tone of the day, which ended with a fraternal dinner marking the start of the new academic year.
