St. Paul Major Seminary

The school was established in 1937. It has 800 students, and 400 of them study to become priests. The Principal of the seminary, Dr. Philipus Tule, presented a lecture on ‘The Role of the Church in Flores Development: Past, Present, and Future’.

Flores, St.Paul 2601

The role of the church can mainly be seen in the development of agriculture, in creating inspiration, and in competence and human resource development.
Flores is the part of Indonesia with most poverty. Among the 3.5 million people, 43% live below the poverty line, which is set to 30 000 Rupiah pr. month. Also the rate of illiteracy is high here; over 22% of the population has never been to school (Nusa Tenggara and NTB).

A saying in Flores is that you don’t own the land but the land owns us. This is significant in the way of thinking. A farmer doesn’t own his land; he borrows it from the government, and this contract lasts only 30 years.

The school has worked together with the government in development for many years.
The Catholic Church has significant impact on the local economy and other formal sections in Flores. It covers a wide range of fields: social, education, health, agriculture etc. and there are three main programmes for development; The Flores Welfaartsplan, Development a la Indonesia and The Flores-Timor Plan.

Read more about:

Social and Economic Pastoral Ministries in the past and recent years

The role of the Church in the future

Flores development plans

Publisert av Marita Sørbø <marsor06SPAMFILTER@student.hia.no> 24.04.2007