Supporting the formation of 48 seminarians from the Diocese of Sarh
Chad has an area of approximately 1.3 million km², making it the 21st largest country in the world. However, with roughly 17 million inhabitants, it is very sparsely populated. Part of the country lies within the Sahara region, and it is one of the least developed countries in the world. Another challenge in this overwhelmingly Muslim country in Central Africa is the spread of radical Islam and the growing threat of extremism.
The Diocese of Sarh lies in the south of the country in a region where there are some 220,000 Catholics among a total population of around 1.6 million. They are ministered to by 58 priests. Happily, there are also many new vocations to the priesthood, and currently no fewer than 48 young men from the diocese are in various stages of their priestly formation. Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has been regularly supporting the formation of future priests here.
Thanks to the generous support of our benefactors, Thomas, aged 30, has already achieved his goal and been ordained to the priesthood. It was in primary school that he first came into contact with priests and religious sisters, and he still remembers them with affection, since they were “always joyful with us,” as he puts it. “For us children, it was astonishing to see adults behaving that way with us,” he adds. At that time, he had not even been baptized, and it wasn’t until the age of 17 that he finally received the Sacrament of Baptism while receiving religious instruction from the Comboni Missionaries in Begou. Little by little, the feeling grew ever stronger within him that God was calling him to the priesthood.
“Every vocation is the call of God,” says Thomas. “It is He who calls every individual and prepares him to respond to His call. God does not speak to us directly, but rather always through other persons whom He places in our path.” In his case, it was his friends in the parish, and one particular priest, with whom he was at last able to speak about his budding vocation. Thomas ultimately decided to become a diocesan priest, as the need for priests in his home diocese was, and still is, great. But at first, he was hesitant to speak to his family about his vocation. “I thought that if I spoke to them about it, my parents would no longer support me in my studies – above all because my father was still not a Christian. When I finally found the courage to talk to him, he was very happy at my decision and supported me right up to his death, just a few months after I was ordained a deacon. The rest of my relatives were divided in their opinions, both for and against, because some of them thought that I should marry, like my father, and have children. But I wasn’t going to be deterred. I wanted only to become a priest, and this conviction was my strength. And God accompanied me, with the help of various people, to stick to my formation in the seminary right until the end. I became a deacon on June 5, 2021, and on June 4, 2022, I was ordained to the priesthood.”
The 48 young men studying to become priests need our support on this path; they need our prayers. But the Church also needs our financial support here in this desperately poor country, to be able to provide this formation to the young men who feel called to the priesthood. And so we would like to support the training of these seminarians for another year. Will you help us?
