Aid to the Church in Need: Romania: Help for the seminary in Alba Julia

Romania: Help for the seminary in Alba Julia

Posted by Project of the Week on 7/9/2009, 10:10 am
Board Administrator

ROMANIA

Refurbishing and modernising the main kitchen of the seminary in Alba Julia

The main kitchen in the seminary of Alba Julia provides daily meals for 250 people. For the refectory serves not only the seminarians from the four dioceses of the country but also the pupils and most of the teachers of the adjoining Catholic grammar school, plus the academic staff of the theological faculty, the staff of the diocesan Caritas and numerous guests as well. On top of this the kitchen also provides for the priests and laity who come here for retreats and spiritual exercises.

As a result, the kitchen is also a major employer in the city, providing women from poor families in particular with the opportunity to earn a living and gain professional experience. For poverty is still widespread in Romania and unemployment high, and it is a well-known fact that many women can see no other way out, other than prostitution. Similarly, many women who go in search of a job abroad have a rude awakening, falling into the hands of unscrupulous human traffickers and finding themselves trapped and enslaved without papers and without rights, in brothels, instead of being able to work as nannies or home helps as they had originally been promised. Hence any respectable employment is a blessing and a source of hope for the future, especially for women from the poorest levels of society.

Every year, however, these women find themselves fearing for their jobs, and the seminary for its kitchen, for the health authorities keep threatening to close it down. The only answer is a complete an urgent renovation of this kitchen, which is intensively used, the whole year round. In recent years the safety and hygiene requirements have been constantly increased, especially since Romania joined the EU. Now the electrical wiring, the waste system, the central heating plant, the sanitary facilities such as washbasins and sinks, the kitchen equipment, extraction filters, ventilation system, cooking pans, work surfaces, floor tiles and wall tiles – in short everything – must be renewed and replaced. There is no other alternative, since the closure of the kitchen would be little short of a catastrophe, not only for the seminary, but for the entire life of the Catholic Church in Alba Julia.

This year the Catholics of Alba Julia are celebrating the millennium of the establishment of their diocese. For this city in Transylvania, which today has a population of around 66,000 souls, has been an episcopal see ever since the year 1009. In 1991, following the political changes in the country, Pope John Paul II raised it to the status of an archdiocese.

Despite the long years of bloody persecution under communism, the Catholic Church in Romania is far from dead. With great love and painstaking hard work, the priests and faithful have now rebuilt their ecclesial life. And so the work of the Church in Alba Julia cannot be allowed to be disrupted now, simply because they cannot afford a new kitchen for the seminary. The Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) has promised the rector of the seminary a grant of $33,000 for this work.

To help this cause please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

Some of the seminarians in Alba Julia
(Code: 423-02-19)

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org