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The Redemptor Hominis Center (RHC)
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Theological PrinciplesThe Redemptor Hominis Center adheres to the following principles:
- God’s grace is primary. God is always the First Mover, and He is aiding each seminarian with His grace. The Redemptor Hominis Center is not a Pelagian self-help project but a cooperation of the seminarian with God to embrace healthy behaviors that will support his future ministry as a priest.
- The human person is a composite of body and soul, created in the image and likeness of God, for an eternal destiny. The Center embraces a Thomistic anthropology that allows the work of the Center to integrate with the intellectual, spiritual, and pastoral dimensions of formation.
- Virtue lies within a mean as determined by reason. Behaviors that support health can be approached like virtues. The extremes to be avoided are ignoring one’s health as if it did not matter or paying so much attention to one’s health that it becomes all-consuming. The cardinal virtues of temperance and prudence are particularly helpful for cultivating healthy behaviors.
- Health is a means to an end, not an end in itself. Union with God is the Final End. Health in the body disposes the body to act with promptitude to the command of the soul. The ministerial acts of the priests are embodied operations that require a body disposed to act. These ministerial acts are the priest’s pathway to his Final End.
- Charity is the ordering principle for all health behaviors. As St. Thomas Aquinas states, we love our bodies for the sake of God, Who created us good (ST II-II, q. 25, a. 5).