| dc.description.abstract | The topic for this research is: “The role of Christian families of Gangama Parish in formation of
future priests in light of Pastores Dabo Vobis.” The questions that guided the research are: Who is
a priest in the Catholic Church? What is the role of a family in forming a Catholic priest? Which
challenges do young men in formation to priesthood face? I have used a cross - section design with
both descriptive qualitative and quantitative technique of data collection. Qualitative information
was obtained through key informants and conducting interviews. Quantitative data was obtained
from respondents who after issuing them with questionnaires, answered and returned them to the
researcher. The findings indicate that a term ‘priest’ is defined as; a man called and chosen by God
who attends the necessary training and leaves his family after ordination to serve God through the
Church. A priest is one who administers sacraments. A priest leads people to God as spiritual
advisor. A priest is a collaborator with the Bishop in a certain parish he has been entrusted. A
priest is ‘another Christ’. A priest is an intermediary between people and God who vows to life of
celibacy and poverty. A priest is a missionary of God in the world who works for the spread of the
kingdom of God on earth. A priest is an apostle of Christ. A priest is one who takes care of the
temporal goods of the Church and her institutions like: hospitals and schools. The Christian family
plays the following role in training of young men to the Catholic priesthood. The parents receive
the sacrament of Holy Matrimony, bear children, introduce the faith to the children through
sacraments of initiation, teach good morals to the children, encourage children to love associating
with priests, serve at the altar and joining apostolate of the Church, encourage the children to love
the vocation to the priesthood, parents promote their children’s being in the seminary. The
challenges faced by the young men who join seminary formation in view of becoming Catholic
priests include: discouragements from some people of opposite sex who see seminarians as future
husbands, inadequate forgiveness from supervisors, political instability, temptations, financial
constraints, witch craft that disorganizes the family and makes the future priest lose interest in
formation to priesthood, long period of formation, peer pressure, chronic sickness, discouraging
cultural beliefs from which future priests as heirs of the family and wish to have grand - sons and
grand - daughters. Future priests are at times misunderstood by Christians and supervisor /
formators. Future priests face intellectual challenges, spiritual challenges, pastoral challenges and
hidden identity | en_US |
