Members of the Catholic Church in the country have been asked to support the clergy as well as the formation of seminarians in major seminaries of Kachebere in Mchinji and St. Peters in Zomba.
Bishop of Mangochi Diocese, Right Reverend Montfort Stima made the appeal on Sunday at Saints Peter and Paul (Chilobwe) Parish in the Archdiocese of Blantyre during the thanksgiving Mass for Friends of Mangochi Diocese residing in Blantyre.
He said the church is struggling to mobilise resources for training of seminarians in the two formation centres and that the same applies to welfare of priests whenever they seek specialized medical care at reputable hospitals such as Mwaiwathu and Seventh Day private hospitals.
“To put the matter in perspective, the church requires to raise at least K1 million to train a seminarian in the major seminary in one academic year,” Stima said, adding that most priests also require good medical treatment each time they have been taken ill.
Stima encouraged Catholics to consider adopting a seminarian to lessen the burden encountered by individual Episcopal Conference of Malawi members in taking care of the prospective priests, advising members of the church to contribute generously towards the medical scheme of priests in their respective dioceses.
Stima therefore asked the Catholic faithful to devise effective and sustainable ways of generating revenue for both evangelism and growth of the universal church.
“It is possible as long as we join hands; like the miracle performed by Jesus Christ in the Bible where he multiplied two loaves of bread and three pieces of fish to feed the multitude, we need to be confident of working wonders as well by supporting the church in various forms,” he added.
Commenting on the impending occurrence of Cyclone Chido, the prelate encouraged the faithful to pray hard for a non-violent cyclone considering that memories were still fresh of the Cyclone Freddy which devastated Chilobwe Township the most.
Chairperson for Friends of Mangochi Diocese in the Archdiocese of Blantyre, Rose Kazombo Mwale concurred with Stima, saying members of the church have an obligation to support the training of would-be priests in seminaries and take care the welfare of serving priests.
“We normally have a thanksgiving Mass at the end of the year but we thought of doing it differently this year by conducting a fundraising event targeting to raise funds for supporting seminarians and priests in Mangochi Diocese,” Mwale said.
She added that the group will undertake various fundraising activities to raise substantial amount of money in aid of a medical scheme for priests and moulding of future priests in seminaries.
