St. Thomas Aquinas' Major Seminary is a house of priestly formation for men in the configuration stages. The PPF explains the nature of this formation and how it is organized around four dimensions: human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral.

The seminary and its programs foster the formation of priests by attending specifically to their human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation. The goal is the development not just of a well-rounded person, a prayerful person, or an experienced pastoral practitioner but rather one who understands his spiritual development within the context of his call to service in the Church, his human development within the greater context of his call to advance the mission of the Church, his intellectual development as the appropriation of the Church’s teaching and tradition, and his pastoral formation as participation in the active ministry of the Church (116-117).

In the Ratio Fundamentalis, the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy highlights “the integration of all dimensions” of priestly formation as essential to the seminary and its program (94). According to the PPF, each dimension relates to the others as follows: "Through human formation the foundation is laid upon which the other dimensions can be received and lived. Through spiritual formation, the seminarian learns to bring everything from the other dimensions into his relationship with Jesus Christ. Through intellectual formation he comes
to a deeper understanding of the truths of faith and the human person,
enriching his relationship with God, his understanding of himself, and his
service to others. Through pastoral formation he learns how to express the
other three in pastoral charity, the overall goal of priestly formation. It is
through the integration of all four dimensions that the seminarian comes
to the affective maturity and freedom needed for priestly service (116). 

In this way, each dimension plays an integrative role. Pastoral formation takes a certain priority in the theologate as the candidate draws closer to receiving Holy Orders.