In Kenya, Catholic Seminary Has Priorities Straight

I finally had time to read through a brief article on St. Thomas Aquinas (great patron!) major seminary in Nairobi, Kenya—a seminary with computers disconnected from the Internet, mostly because the $8,000 USD fee to wire the building is outside the limits of the seminary's budget.

I'm guessing the post's author decided to focus on the Internet (or lack thereof) in order to draw readers' attention (I guess it worked, since I'm mentioning the article...), but the best part of the article was in the last paragraph.

Msgr. Francis Blood (director of the Mission Office here in the Archdiocese of St. Louis) asked Cardinal John Njue about what his priorities should be for sending missionary support to Nairobi. Cardinal Njue responds:

“Projects that focus on deepening of the faith” take priority, said the cardinal. In addition, he said, “the issue of the formation of the priests is so vital,” because “if the priests are shaky” when facing the challenges to the church, it will “trickle down.”

It's good to see that, in areas of the world where the faith is taking root and expanding rapidly, we have such focused prelates!

The U.S., I think, is on the right track at this point in time, but I know that there were many problems in our priorities and seminary system in the past 40 years. Having great, faithful, and loving loving priests is essential to having a strong and vibrant faith, and great Eucharistic devotion. I know this is an area most Western countries have struggled with for a while, and I pray for things to get better every day!