The world awaits saints: even before educated, eloquent and up-to-date priests, saints and sanctifying priests are needed.

Peter's successor led a speech in which he evinced the priestly ministry and the importance of formation in the priesthood, stopping to consider how indispensable is the harmonious integration between the ministry with its many activities and the spiritual life of the presbyter.

Recalled, that for the priest, destined to accompany others along the path of life and to the door of death, it is important to maintain the right balance between heart and intellect, reason and feeling, body and soul to be humanly intact.

Stressing that these are the reasons that drive to pay close attention to the human dimension of the formation of the candidates for the priesthood.

In this sense, Benedict XVI emphasized that it is not just about learning the useful things but about knowing and understanding the internal structure of faith in its entirety, so that it will become a response to the questions of men who are different from the external point of view, from generation to generation but that, however, remains the same. For this reason, the Pope told them that the study of theology must be in close union with the life of prayer.

Again the Holy Father remembered that "whoever wants to be a priest must be, above all a man of God as Saint Paul writes" (1 Tm 6.11), and therefore the most important thing on the road to the priesthood and throughout the priestly life is the personal relationship with God in Jesus Christ.

In another part of his speech, Benedict XVI quoted the words pronounced by blessed John XXIII on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the “Campano” regional seminary, when addressing the superiors and students expressed "this tends his education, awaiting the mission that will be entrusted to them for the glory of God and for the salvation of souls: to form the mind and sanctify the will.

"The world expects saints: even before educated, eloquent and up-to-date priests, holy and sanctifying priests are needed." These words resonate still today, he said, because today more than ever in the whole church there is a need for gospel workers, credible witnesses and promoters of holiness with their own lives: "That each one of you can answer this call" sponsored the Pope at the end of this meeting.