The seminaries of Burkina Faso are no longer enough to accommodate the young men discovering their priestly vocation. This is discussed by the rector of the Ouagadougou seminary, explaining how training takes place and the danger posed by Islamist terrorism.

---

 

Vocational crisis: there are too many! The number of seminarians is so high that there is no more room in the seminaries.

This is what is happening in Burkina Faso, in West Africa, and if we think about almost empty seminaries in Italy, it’s a truly strange scenario to imagine.

 

Burkina Faso: No Room in the Seminaries

“We have divided the rooms of the seminary into small units separated by partitions to accommodate them,” explains Father Guy Moukassa Sanon to the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need.

Father Sanon is the rector of the Major Seminary of Saints Peter and Paul in Kossoghin, a village on the outskirts of the capital, Ouagadougou.

Indeed, if one visits the seminary’s Facebook page, they will notice the great vitality of the activities and the active participation of the seminarians.

Despite the creation of new rooms within the seminary, the rector continued, “these conditions are far from ideal for their studies and, moreover, they are still insufficient. For this reason, we have been forced to accommodate 22 seminarians elsewhere and send another 11 to a seminary in Mali.”

 

Priestly Formation and the Reasons Behind Vocations

The greatest concern of the trainers is ensuring that future priests “can give an authentic testimony of their faith” and that they “have a true personal encounter with Christ, with the Gospel as their food and passion.”

The rector also mentions that for the Christmas holidays, many young men remained at the seminary because returning home would have meant putting their lives at risk. It has already happened in previous years that some were killed: almost 40% of the young men come from dioceses in the “red zone,” the areas severely affected by Islamic terrorism.

Nevertheless, the number of seminarians in the country continues to rise. Just in the Ouagadougou seminary, the number of future priests has grown from 254 in the 2019-2020 academic year to 281 in 2024-2025. Many of them have Muslim parents.

But why are so many young Burkinabe discovering a priestly vocation?

According to the seminary rector, the Catholic Church in Burkina Faso is acting in a productive and credible manner, and it is very likely that these young men encounter people in their lives who can “testify to the love of Christ in a clear and evident way.” The awakening of a vocation is also easier there than “in a materialistic context where nothing is expected from God.”

In our view, a major factor is that faith, and even life itself, are not taken for granted. Christian persecution is strong in Burkina Faso, where terrorist groups often kill people indiscriminately, whether they are Muslim or Christian. At other times, they aim to impose Sharia law, directly targeting Christians.

 

Terrorism in Burkina Faso and Hatred Towards Christians

Those who decide to be Christian do so every day, putting their lives at risk, faith is embodied in daily life and is not culturally reduced to an inherited habit, as in the West, where the risk of considering it “obvious” no longer allows it to touch existence.

Since 2015, Burkina Faso, which is about 25% Christian, has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism and priests have increasingly become targets of terrorists.

For this reason, the 2024 Christmas campaign of Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) focused on supporting Burkinabe Christians. It is possible to concretely support the work of the pontifical foundation by following the instructions on this page.