Feature
The Annual Bishop’s Appeal directly impacts the formation of seminarians through funding for education Story by Janet Marcel ~ Photos by Tyler Neil Once a year, Bishop Shelton J. Fabre makes a direct plea to the people of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux to support certain diocesan ministries through their prayers and financial contributions to the Annual Bishop’s Appeal (ABA). One of the ministries supported by the 2021 Appeal is seminarian education. Bishop Fabre says he hopes the Appeal will remind everyone to pray that more young men will hear the call to serve the Lord as diocesan priests, and additionally that those who are able will consider making a financial gift to support the education of our seminarians. “The ABA directly impacts the formation of our seminarians because it provides us with some of the funds that are necessary to educate our seminarians,” says Bishop Fabre, who adds that it costs the diocese around $45,000 a 26 • Bayou Catholic • Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux • March 2021
year for each of four to eight years to educate a young man who desires to be a diocesan priest. Bishop Fabre says that seminaries were established so that those men who were being prepared to be ordained as deacons and eventually as priests would receive the necessary formation to serve the Lord as a priest, if that is their calling. He goes on to explain that there are four pillars of that formation. The first pillar is intellectual formation where they are being educated in Scripture studies, church teachings, church history, and things such as that. The second pillar is spiritual formation where they learn to answer questions such as: What does it mean to live my life as a man of prayer? What does it mean to have my relationship with Jesus Christ as the focus of my life?
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