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| Bishop George Lungu (left) and Bishop Montfort Stima |
Speaking during the Assessment of Priests’ Performance workshop organized by AMECEA Pastoral department, Bishop Lungu said, “If a parent sends a boy to the Minor Seminary, with the intention that the boy would go for further studies and get a better job and have a better future, what you are doing means literally denying another boy with genuine vocation a chance. That is a lost opportunity for getting a priest,” Bishop Lungu explained.
Bishop further said, “In my Diocese, Chipata, my predecessor put in place a Minor Seminary and that facility is supposed to be a place of formation and discernment for a boy who is supposed to proceed to the Major Seminary. Now if I have 20 boys in a class for instance for five years in the seminary for secondary education, hoping that I am discerning with them, I am forming them in view of them entering a Major Seminary and at the end I am having nobody or just a single boy, what does that say? It means that these boys haven’t been honest, either the boys themselves or the parents.”
The Bishop explained that some parents know very well that their children have not exhibited signs of becoming a priest and have not even mentioned the desire of becoming a priest; deliberately bring their children to the Minor Seminaries because they are aware that the facilities will offer them a quality education. Some parents prefer that when their sons get grade A in all the subjects, they should join Universities; something which Bishop Lungu described it as a pure dishonest.
“We invest a lot in the junior seminaries, that project is not meant to form Christians; but Priests. The notion that in the future these people will become good Christians! is not accepted. That is not the idea of a Minor Seminary. We invest a lot in that institution; just an example, in my Minor seminary I have four priests, these I could have sent them to a Parish because there are communities who are in need of Priests, but I do that because I know that if I don’t take care of the fountain where priests come from, then we will have no future prospects for our Diocese. Also, as I am getting money from Rome; and instead of using that money for other projects, I sent it to the seminary because we don’t want them to run short of their very basic essentials,” he said.
“Unfortunately the boys often disappear upon completing their education and this makes the project wasteful in terms of the aim that it was started,” he said. He is convinced that Minor Seminaries are very essential for the formation of future priests because there isn’t much formation in the Christian families and so the facilities offer a privileged place where the Church can form young boys. He
“We need Priests for sure,” he said adding that “Priests play very important roles in our societies and without them there would be no Sacraments, and no Sacraments means no Church. We need Priests, especially in Africa where you find that some communities go for months without the Eucharist, without confessions, some even die without receiving that sacrament of anointing.
Bishop Lungu appealed to families to respect the purpose for which the junior seminaries have been established. “Deception will make the whole Catholic family suffer for lack of priests.,” he said.
By Pamela Adinda, AMECEA Online News