SALVATORIAN MAJOR SEMINARY FOR FORMATION OF RELIGIOUS PRIESTS IN TANZANIA Morogoro - Tanzania P.O.Box 1878 Morogoro

In the mid eighties Salvatorians as well as other Religious Congregations working in Tanzania had faced the lack of their own seminary for formation of new religious to the priestly mission. A very limited number of places in local, diocesan seminaries inspired the idea to establish the Salvatorian Major Seminary. The Salvatorian Mission Superior of that time, Fr. Andrew Urbañski, presented this idea on the Conference of RSAT and proposed that Salvatorian Major Seminary would also be open for all religious candidates to the priesthood from the whole of Tanzania. The final approval of this idea took place on 11 June, 1988. However sometime before, Salvatorians Br. Donald Maurer from the USA and later Br. Vincent Mrope from Tanzania began some preparatory work. As the place for the realisation of the new project, the foot of the Kola Hills near Morogoro located 200 km west of Dar es Salaam had been chosen. The location of the seminary on the main route in central Tanzania enables the seminary to become a real centre of intellectual, pastoral, and spiritual formation of future priests. The election of Fr. Andrew Urbañski for the office of Vicar General and Mission Secretary of the Society of Divine Saviour did not allow him to continue this endeavour.

Nevertheless the work was dynamically carried on by the new Salvatorian Mission Superior, Fr. Zdzislaw Tracz. On 2nd September, 1990 Pope John Paul II, blessed the cornerstone of the new Seminary during his pilgrimage to Tanzania while visiting Dar es Salaam. This date is recognised as the official beginning of construction.

The main architect of the Seminary - wooed to this project by Fr. Zdzislaw Tracz - is Prof. Herbert Kramel from the University of Zurich, who voluntarily and free of charge made the architectural drawings of the whole complex. The main contractor is an Italian-Tanzanian company, Coastal Steel. Finally the construction of the Seminary as such started at the beginning of 1991. During five years the construction of the majority of buildings has been accomplished (seven big classrooms for one hundred students each, the building for professors, kitchen with dining room for 400 students, two dormitories for about 40 students each, and the complex of three houses for lay professors and their families). no culture is an empty bottle, where we can put each kind of liquid without difficulty. Each man, each culture has his own habits, traditions, customs, convictions and conventions, styles of life, manners and observances. And, sometimes it is very difficult simply to resign, to renounce, to abandon, and to change all or at least some of them. It was the case of the Israelites, the people of God, which were so deep, so closely attached to their customs, that they were incapable of abandoning them for God's proposition.

We can see also in the history of Christianity other processes of inculturation. One among the very first is certainly the process of the meeting of Christianity with Greek philosophical culture and afterwards with the Roman legalistic system. Let us see a little bit closer these processes. Maybe we could pick up something interesting for our contemporary inculturation?

The very first, who undertook such a task was probably (we can discuss about Origin or Jerome) St. Augustine, who tried to express Christian religious thought in philosophical language of neo-Platonism. From this synthesis of Christianity and philosophy, we have a big philosophical and theological system, known as augustianism. The system which was an official system of the Church from the fifth until thirteenth century, thus for more than 800 years.

As the second giant of inculturation, we can see St. Thomas Aquinas, who introduced or expressed Christianity using the philosophical system of Aristotle. Thomism is a valid philosophical system until nowadays. Much more! both; philosophy and Christianity gain something from this meeting. The positive effect of this for philosophy was a deepening and sublimation, for Christianity clarity and effectiveness.

In both cases the situation was quite different to the contemporary situation of the inculturation in Africa. That time Christianity met a concrete philosophical system of thought (Platonism - neo-Platonism or Aristotelism). In the case of contemporary Africa, we are participating in a different process. A philosophical system seems to be created or at least clearly articulated (to say shortly is to be born) with the arrival of Christianity. The African system of thought is forced to be expressed in a philosophical language. In the case of Augustine or Thomas Aquinas, the philosophy was there, was formed, was ready to meet Christianity, to challenge it, to be incorporated in the Christian system of values, Christian system of thinking, to accept Christianity as a purification and a deepening. It was only necessary to express Christianity in philosophical (it means human, existential) terms and words, to apply a philosophical system as a language to the theological thought. We can even say that from the beginning God is looking for the manner of how to talk to man. He is searching the human language to enable Him to talk to man. For this reason, He sends His Only-begotten Son, Who became a Man, to talk to man in a human language. However, this human language has to be articulated has to exist. Otherwise, God does not have the possibility to dialogue with man.

What is the situation in "African inculturation"? Do we have this human language, human wisdom, human, existential dictionary, in short, do we have a genuine philosophical system expressing this human wisdom?

Somebody can ask: "Is it necessary, to have a philosophy, in order to meet Christianity? Is it not possible to meet it without the philosophical system?" I dare to say YES, it is necessary! Because as Peter Bodunrin said: "Philosophy is a conscious creation. One cannot be said to have a philosophy in the strict sense of the word until one has consciously reflected on one's beliefs." If the philosophy is a con