Kakrabah-Quarshie
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The future Ghanaian Priest should put himself at the disposal of the people as their servant and not elevate himself as their master, Most Rev. Peter Kwasi Sarpong, Archbishop of Kumasi, has cautioned.
Archbishop Sarpong said this in an interview published in Pedu Today, a house magazine of the St. Peter’s Regional Seminary at Pedu.
The interview was in connection with the Golden Jubilee of the Seminary, which was recently climaxed with Holy Mass, presided over by His Eminence Ivan Cardinal Dias, Pope Benedict XVI’s Special Envoy to the climax of the Centenary celebrations of the Evangelization of the Northern part of Ghana.
Archbishop Sarpong, an alumnus, noted that though tribalism should not have a place in the life of a Seminarian, he had seen “these lapses in the products of Seminaries now.”
According to him, he expected the Seminary to concentrate on the building of the Kingdom of God, “that kingdom of love which has not yet been built in Ghana.” He said that Seminarians should come out as Priests not involved in inordinate quest for wealth, prestige and honour.
Asked why the Kumasi Province was establishing the St. Gregory the Great Major Seminary, Archbishop Sarpong explained that it was obvious that the Pedu Seminary had become congested.
He said the Kumasi Province consulted the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference which supported the project and that they had to defend their case before Vatican allowed it, and the Decree of its establishment had also been promulgated.
He gave the assurance that the establishment of the new Seminary “does not mean severing contact with the St. Peter’s Regional Seminary or, for that matter, St. Victor’s Major Seminary."
He said to further reduce congestion at both Amisano and Pedu, the St. Victor’s Major Seminary was opened at Tamale.
The Archbishop noted that Pedu is owned by 13 Dioceses with 220 students with a staff of 13, stressing that there was the need for physical and academic expansion “for deep spiritual fortification, which can be enhanced when the students are relatively few.”
He indicated that the five Dioceses in the Kumasi Province – Kumasi, Sunyani, Goaso, Konongo-Mampong and Obuasi – would continue to send students to Pedu and Sowutuom.
He was hopeful that other Bishops would also send their students to the new Seminary in Kumasi.
The 74-year-old Prelate was the first African Rector of Pedu.
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