A Catholic priest has called on the church to take more seriously the formation of catechists in order to enable them help priests in evangelization.
Fr Patrick Murunga, the director of Mitume Catechists Training College in Kenya's Catholic Diocese of Kitale, called for the harmonization of the training syllabi for all catechist training colleges in Kenya in order to prepare catechists who can serve anywhere in the country.
"We need to prepare catechists as the people who will help Christians understand the sacraments," Fr Murunga told CISA in an interview.
The Fidei Donum priest seconded from the Diocese of Kakamega called on parish priests to help catechists in their work, as only the catechists are able to go to the level of the people in evangelization.
Fr Murunga said that the poor formation given to young Christians is responsible for the decaying morals among the youth.
"We must reinvent the wheel from above," he said. "The bishop should know the seminarian well before ordination, the priest must know the catechumens well before baptism, and the bishop should spend more than one day with the people to be confirmed in the parishes," he said.
