By Gordon Wellu
A new Major Seminary, the St. Gregory the Great Major Seminary, is being built at Parkoso in Kumasi, to serve the Dioceses that make up the Kumasi Ecclesiastical Province.
The project, which is about 30 percent complete, is being financed by the St. Peter the Apostle, Rome, Church in Need in Konigstein, Germany and with contributions from the faithful and lay organisations in the Archdiocese of Kumasi.
While the classrooms are almost ready, the Dining Hall Complex, the Rector’s Residence, a Dormitory Block and Chapel are still under construction.
The St. Theresa of the Child Jesus Society in the Archdiocese of Kumasi has taken up the construction of the Chapel at the cost of ¢650million; the Knights and Ladies Auxiliary of St. John International are financing the construction of the Rector’s Residence, the Knights and Ladies of Marshall and Christian Mothers’ Association are helping to complete a unit each, while the Kumasi Archdiocesan Catholic Charismatic Renewal is to donate ¢50 million as its contribution to the project.
His Eminence Ivan Cardinal Dias, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, who blessed the site and laid the foundation stone for the new Seminary, praised the Laity of Kumasi for their active involvement in the progress of the Church in that part of the country.
He thanked the various lay organisations which are helping in the construction of the Seminary.
Cardinal Dias was also grateful to the Ashantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II and the Chiefs of Parkoso for releasing parcels of land for Church projects like the construction of the St. Gregory the Great Seminary.
He commended Most Rev. Peter Sarpong, Metropolitan Archbishop of Kumasi and the Bishops of the Kumasi Ecclesiastical Province for taking the bold step to build the Major Seminary, saying that it was a sign that the Church was growing.
Cardinal Dias was particularly happy that the Seminary was named after St. Gregory the Great, whom he described as “a man of God, a man for the Clergy and a man for his people.”
He expressed optimism that the products of the Seminary would be good Priests and great leaders, in the manner of St. Gregory the Great.
On behalf of the Bishops of the Kumasi Ecclesiastical Province, Most Rev. Matthew Gyamfi, Bishop of Sunyani, thanked Rome for giving the permission for the Province to start a Seminary.
He said the need for quality education, well-formed and good priests, necessitated the building of the St. Gregory the Great Seminary, to decongest the St. Peter’s Regional Seminary at Pedu, Cape Coast, where Priests in the Southern Sector of the country are formed.
With the building of the new St. Gregory the Great Seminary, Priests for the Kumasi Archdiocese, the Sunyani, Obuasi, Konongo-Mampong and Goaso Dioceses would be formed there.
It will bring to three, the number of Provincial Seminaries in the Provinces of Tamale, Cape Coast and Kumasi.
Archbishop Sarpong announced that the second dormitory is named after Cardinal Ivan Dias while the Hall Complex is named after Archbishop George Kocherry, Apostolic Nuncio to Ghana.
Present at the ceremony were Chiefs and people of Parkoso, the various church societies and organisations in the Archdiocese of Kumasi, the Clergy and all the Bishops of the Kumasi Ecclesiastical Province.
In a related development, Cardinal Dias blessed and commissioned a new Archdiocesan Catholic Secretariat for the Archdiocese of Kumasi at Anyinam and prayed that the Secretariat would be put to good use.
Archbishop Sarpong thanked everyone who in one way or the other, had contributed to the project, which was built solely from local funds.
He named the Library after Cardinal Dias and the Conference Hall after Archbishop Kocherry.
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