Go and Make Disciples: The demise of the missionary vocation

Go and Make Disciples | Jeff Ziegler | Catholic World Report

The demise of the missionary vocation

At 5:00 each morning, Father Mike Snyder rises and prays before the Blessed Sacrament. At 6:30, he offers Mass at his university's chapel; he spends most of the rest of his day meeting and praying with students, visiting the sick at a local hospital, and performing mundane office tasks.

Ordained in 1979, Father Snyder has ministered in Tanzania for decades and now works as the Catholic chaplain at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences (MUHAS), the national medical university. The university is located in Dar es Salaam, a city of 3.2 million and the nation's capital.

Tanzania is among the world's poorest nations; the life expectancy is 53. According to Vatican statistics, 30 percent of the nation's 41 million people are Catholic. The US State Department estimates that 35 percent of Tanzanians are Muslim and 35 percent retain indigenous beliefs.

Whether Tanzania will be predominantly Catholic or Muslim in a century is an open question. Addressing the Synod of Bishops for Africa in 2009, Archbishop Norbert Mtega of Songea warned of "the Islamic monetary factor, whereby huge sums of money from outside countries are being poured in our countries to destabilize peace in our countries and to eradicate Christianity."

At MUHAS, half of the 1,600 students are Catholic. Father Snyder told CWR that his ministry's greatest successes "lie in seeing these gifted young people—the intelligentsia of Tanzania—take responsibility for the operations of the Catholic student community…I would say 50 percent are active in our community. I am able to train them in leadership skills while seeking out ways to assist them in developing their faith. We organize regular retreats and seminars for the students and always have excellent turnouts."

"My visits among the sick are also often rewarding as they show the depth of their faith and hope in Jesus through the patient endurance they display during this time of illness," he adds. "So often I walk away realizing that I have come in contact with the face of Christ through them."

Father Snyder's work is not without its disappointments and challenges. "The disappointments lie in the lack of good medical facilities," he notes. "Muhimbili is probably the best-equipped hospital in the country, but there is still so much lacking. Also, the corruption rampant throughout the country is a disappointment."

"Challenges lie in motivating our medical students to remain in Tanzania after graduation," he says. "So many are lured to attractive jobs outside the country and others to lucrative employment inside the country but outside the medical sector. There is just one medical doctor for 28,000 Tanzanians and one nurse for every hundred hospital patients. Medical salaries in government service are much lower than in other fields."

Father Snyder is part of a rapidly dwindling breed: he is an American missionary priest.

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