KENYA: Seminarians to be Role Models, Says Rector as Seminary Marks Golden Jubilee
Sr. Jecinter Antoinette Okoth, FSSA
After a year-long celebration of 60 years Golden Jubilee of the first regional seminary in Kenya; St. Thomas Aquinas Senior Seminary (STAS), the rector has emphasized the need for the young men discerning the Lord’s call to priesthood, to be role models in society.
In an interview with AMECEA Online Thursday, February 1, Fr. Vincent Simba the new rector of STAS since August 2023, said; “Seminarians should live honest and sincere lives. They are to be prayerful and role models in society to show what St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary is.”
He emphasized further that the “Vocation calls them (seminarians) to be humble faithful and to serve the Lord dedicatedly.”
STAS was erected in 1963 with the congregation of the Order of Preachers (Dominican Friars) as the formators at the Regional seminary that offers not only theological studies but all studies necessary for priestly formation.
According to Fr. Simba who for the past 13 years has been serving as the rector at Pope Benedict XIV Minor Seminary in Kenya’s Kisii Diocese and also as the Vocation Director for the same Diocese, “Spiritual, moral, and material support from Christians, priests, Religious, seminarians, well-wishers, and benefactors have been the pillars that have kept St. Thomas Aquinas seminary for 60 years.”
He appreciated parents who have willingly allowed their sons to continue discerning their call to priesthood and the formators who have dedicated and sacrificed their time to form the young men, saying, “If the parents did not allow their sons to join the seminary, and if we didn’t have formators for this ministry, St. Thomas seminary would have collapsed.”
The diocesan cleric during the Thursday interview revealed that the seminary has produced about 16 bishops in the past 60 years and over 2800 students have passed through STAS many of whom are priests while some have made good family life.
Since a good number of priests serving within the parishes and Dioceses in Kenya were trained at St. Thomas Aquinas seminary, Fr. Simba underscores that “These priests, unify the Church wherever they are.”
He further appreciated increased vocation in the recent past, a move he attributes to the “work of the Holy Spirit.”
“Through the Holy Spirit, we get more vocations and the young people are responding positively to God’s call,” says the new rector who took over from Fr. John Lelei who completed his term last August as he references St. Mary’s Propaedeutic Seminary in Nakuru Diocese and Blessed Bakanja AMECEA College in Nairobi that had seminarians to full capacity and some distributed to STAS.
Even though a lot of achievements have been realized in the seminary for the past 60 years, Fr. Simba bemoans social media as an area of concern in the formation of young men.
“Social media is a great challenge. Formators form the seminars during the day and social media form them during the night,” he narrated and continued, “Social media deconstructs what we are constructing since some seminarians do not know how to use them maturely but rather learn some negative aspects from the gadgets.”
During the Holy Eucharist Mass to launch the 60th anniversary of STAS on January 27, 2023, which was presided over by Archbishop Hubertus van Megen the Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya, the Pope’s representative raised the same challenge and told the seminarians, “You people of the 21st century where mobile phones, computers and Internet, Social media, Twitter, Tiktok and whatever you have is so prominent, be aware how it disperses you.”
Another area of concern for the new rector is the lack of funds to renovate the buildings which have been in existence for six decades.
“The seminary is well structured, well designed with a very fine touch but it is 60 years old and highly needs renovation. It becomes more difficult especially now that Rome has withdrawn the support,” Fr. Simba disclosed adding that there is a lot of struggle for the upkeep of formators and students.”
St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary closed the year-long celebration of its Golden Jubilee on Sunday, January 28, on the feast day of the Patron Saint of the seminary.
The rector noted that during the one-year celebration, seminarians together with their formators were involved in charity works including visiting prisoners and the sick in hospitals, offering prayers for different groups, and conducting symposiums/ academic talks. Others were involved in caring for the environment according to Laudato si guidelines such as planting trees.
