AMECEA PLENARY: Church Leaders Urged to Request Scholarship for Priests, Congregation Members, Lay Faithful
Tony Zender
By Pascal Mwanache
A call has been made by the Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) to the bishops and religious superiors in AMECEA region to request a scholarship for the benefit of priests, members of their orders and congregations, or lay people.
“Bishops and religious superiors can request a scholarship for the benefit of priests, members of their orders and congregations, or lay people. Principal target groups are future teachers, formators and spiritual directors in major seminaries, novice mistresses/masters; for sister congregations also preparation for the specialized apostolate. Future specialists in canon law for the establishment of an ecclesiastical tribunal, to remedy the lack of trained canon lawyers within a diocese or an ecclesiastical province,” Tony Zenda, a representative from ACN said.
Giving the solidarity message at a 20th AMECEA Plenary Assembly, Mr. Zend noted that ACN offers two kinds of scholarships for courses of study of pastoral nature: at one hand, scholarships for studies that take place in the home region itself, at the other hand scholarships for studies in Europe.
“The Scholarship Section offers study aids in the form of scholarships for postgraduate courses in theology, philosophy, canon law, and social communication at ecclesiastical faculties and universities, primarily in Europe as well as in some selected study places in Northern America, that are not available in our project partners’ home regions, as well as for safeguarding courses at the Institute of Anthropology (IADC) at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome,” Zender said.
Zender also said that scholarship holders come from dioceses, orders, and congregations from all countries in the world where the Church is under persecution, under pressure, or in need. Regarding Africa, he said in 2020/21 ACN had 104 scholarships, out of which 39 for scholarship holders from the AMECEA countries.
He also mentioned some of the conditions that should be observed by applying for a scholarship including return to home diocese after the studies, application must be done before the candidate has left his home diocese, no help for an academic degree already earned by the same candidate.
“A candidate should have at least two years of pastoral experience following the priestly ordination; age limit as a rule, a candidate should not be older than 40 years but, especially for priests who work as seminary teachers and formators we make exceptions, for priests holding a licentiate degree who have already worked in the seminary as a formator/lecturer and shall continue to do so, his bishop may well apply for a scholarship for doctoral studies, for candidates older than 40 years, however, a sabbatical year can always be asked for,” he said.
