Goregaon seminary celebrates 50th birthday

The Archdiocese of Bombay on Thursday celebrated the golden jubilee of the seminary, St Pius X College in Goregaon.

It also celebrated the platinum jubilee of the Parel seminary, the first that came into the city through which followers were taken into the fold of priesthood.

Around 600-700 priests have passed out since its inception and around seven enroll every year for priesthood.

The celebration, which will go on for three days — Thursday, Friday and October 28 — saw priests from all over India at the event. It also has special guests Archbishop Robert Sarah, the secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and new Apostolic Nuncio Salvatore Pennacchio, representative of Benedict the XVI were present along with the Archbishop Oswald Gracias.

The event was marked by making a multi-media presentation that traversed through the beginning days of the priesthood. It had interviews of the priests who passed out from the seminary. Interviews also helped describe how the priesthood has evolved over the years and how the seminary has evolved its syllabus for the same to relate to the masses.

A website dedicated to the place was also launched. The seminary holds special importance since 2006, which is when the programmes were approved by Congregation for Catholic Education, Rome. It is also affiliated with the St. Peters Pontifical Institute of Bangalore and students passing out as priests are provided with a degree that is internationally recognised.

“The second day will be largely for priests and it will be a theological symposium. Different aspects of life and ministry of priests will be discussed. The talk will range from evangelisation to emotional experience the priests face. Different pastoral initiative will also be discussed,” said Gilbert D’Lima, dean of studies at the seminary who has been around for 25 years.

He added, “The second day will also see the blessing of the convention centre in the same premises that will be used for the programmes being organised, debates, meeting of archdiocese regional and national level and also problems of and issues of the priests.” The third day will be a get-together to mark plain celebrations.