The Institute offers a four-year program of theological training for aspirants to the Catholic priesthood. This training includes the spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and all-round human formation and inculturation studies.
The Department of Theology follows the common norms of the Congregation of Catholic Education. The Institute's theological program stresses the meaning and value of inculturated theology in Africa.
The Institute's theological program aims:
to form future priests in the true cultural values of East Africa, i.e., to inculturate the Good News through the interaction of the Christian faith and the historical milieu of East African countries, and thereby shed helpful light on traditional African society on the one hand, and, on the other, to offer to these African cultures the traditions of the Church. These future priests are to be true servants dedicated to evangelization, and capable of living a simple life for the benefit of the Church.
to train students to understand the content of Theology as the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Christology plumbs the mystery of God and the mystery of human nature. All theological knowledge is viewed as being derived from this revelation of Jesus Christ.
to instil in the students a proper understanding of the Church's mission, stressing its nature and function in which the word of God is the basic criterion for both theology and Church.
The Institute's program stresses those disciplines that bring to light the different values found in the various human cultures.
The Institute is especially interested in promoting Inculturation of the Gospel in a context of African cultural diversity. Therefore, the emphasis has been put not only on intellectual understanding of theology but also on practical implementation of it in the daily life of the ordinary Christian in the parish. Consequently, pastoral training of our students should begin as early as possible after the completing first year of theology.
They will learn on two levels what evangelization itself entails: first, as Eucharistic participation in the daily liturgy and second as existential sharing with others in daily life. It is through evangelization that the students become aware of these interactions of the individual and the community.
The intellectual and spiritual teaching of theology should emphasize also the student's function as evangelizer of the world.
The indispensable and paramount aspect of intellectual, spiritual and pastoral priestly formation is to teach students their positive response to the whole teaching of the Magisterium Ecclesiae which has been summed up in the two following criteria: compatibility with the Christian Message and communion with the universal Church. The student must affirm the Church in Africa, rather than the Church of Africa. The teaching of the Church is seen in two modern terms: Inculturation and New Evangelization.
Therefore, the student's pastoral work is a work of Inculturation. It is nothing more than a movement towards full Evangelization. This Inculturation, on the one hand, includes the whole life of the Church and the whole process of Evangelization. On the other hand it shows the need for research in the field of African cultures in all their complexity.. to exploit to the maximum the numerous possibilities, which the Church's present discipline provides in this matter.
The dedication of our students is also needed for this work. In view of the radical newness of the Gospel and with certain breaks from the customs and culture of the past, the new Christian becomes the salt of the earth and light of the world in his own country. This new life means the fullness of the vocation to grow in conformity to Christ.
The aim of the intellectual, spiritual and pastoral formation of the theology department is to stress the following:
Each proclaimer of Christ must follow the path of the Apostolic teaching, even if it leads to martyrdom, i.e., to be truly transparent to Christ and to follow Jesus to the Cross. This is not to remain fantasy but is intended to promote a choice for the truth of the Gospel over a seeking for popular acceptance, material benefits, or self-promotion. The student should be taught to be dedicated to the salvation of the peoples of the world. Therefore, he is called to give up part of his life for the sake of the Gospel and thereby witness to its absolute truth.
The new evangelization is to build a community in which Christ is truly present. Evangelization is a matter of life and death - eternal life and everlasting death - both for those to be evangelized and for the evangelizer. It means that the Gospel must change a person's whole life, and Christianity must touch every aspect of human life. Nothing is foreign to the interest of the Church or to Evangelization.
The New Evangelization strives to facilitate a more authentic way of living the Gospel in Africa. This is what John Paul II has expressed using the words of Jesus "You shall be my witnesses", but the African Synod also adds that Christians must become the witnesses to Jesus as Africans. "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel."
Inculturation must be integrated with Evangelization, as John Paul II said, Inculturation of the Church in any new culture is not a betrayal but a requirement of Evangelization. Through Inculturation the Church makes the Gospel incarnate in different cultures and at the same time introduces peoples, together with their cultures, into her own community, and Paul VI calls it an incubation of the Christian mystery in the genius of a people. Inculturation also enriches the Church by the values of a new culture, while the Church transforms that culture from within. The requirements of inculturation as well as the conditions of the Institute's pastoral training of our students need the collaboration of many and claims the students' personal engagement in new forms of evangelization.
The Salvatorian Institute in Morogoro has organized a complete course of theology that extends through four years (eight academic semesters). During this space of time, the students should complete all that the Pontificia Universitas Urbaniana requires for the First Institutional Cycle.
