(Seychelles News Agency) - The Roman Catholic Church of Seychelles has made history this month, by welcoming two new Seychellois priests in their diocese in the space of a week, Christian Toulon and Emmanuel Boniface who became the 20th and 21st Seychellois priests. 

Toulon, who was ordained deacon in Seychelles last year, was ordained as a priest on August 5, while Boniface took to the priesthood on August 11. Boniface was ordained as a deacon in Orleans France. Both were ordained deacons in December 2023.

Toulon and Boniface's ordinations came two years after the ordination of Romeo Bonne into the priesthood. Bonne who was ordained in July 2022, is the first Catholic priest from Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, to join the Spiritan congregation, his ordination came 13 years after the ordination of another Seychellois priest, Father Collin Underwood, in 2009. The island nation is a predominantly Catholic country.

 The vicar general of the Roman Catholic Church, Father Eric Leon, said that the two ordinations bring much joy to the diocese and that they are encouraged by the sudden increase in vocations.

Toulon was ordained as a priest on August 5. (Seychelles Nation) Photo License: CC-BY

"The church now needs to be more engaged, and to put in place structures and services to work with children so that at a young age, we can help them to discover their vocations and respond to their calls", added Leon.

According to Leon "Responding to vocations is something that elevates a country and offers hope to those in need. Our country is in distress and in need of people who are ready to spend their lives to responding these needs."

Weeks before the ordination of Boniface and Toulon, another Seychellois man, Aubrey Pon-Waye was ordained as a deacon, and it is his wish to become a priest too. Something the Church expects to happen in one year's time.

Currently, there are two Seychellois in France studying their preparation for a religious role. They are Jean Michel Camille, hailing from the third most populated island of La Digue, for the priesthood and Genevieve Adrien, preparing to be a nun.

Although the Catholic Church was brought to Seychelles by the island nation's first French settlers, it was formally established in 1852 as the Apostolic Prefecture of Seychelles. Four decades later it became the Diocese of Port Victoria, in July 1892.

Since then, twenty-two Seychellois men have been ordained into priesthood including Father James Chang-Tave - the first Seychellois priest – who was ordained by Cardinal Pietro Fumasoni-Biondi in Rome, Italy, in January 1950. Chang-Tave is the only Seychellois to have been ordained at the Vatican in Rome.

Pon-Waye has been ordained as a deacon. (Seychelles Nation) Photo License: CC-BY

The second Seychellois was Father Symphorien Morel, who was born in 1922 on Silhouette island – the third largest island of the archipelago. Because of the unrest in Europe at that time, he attended his theology studies in Mumbai, India. He was ordained in September 1951 at Mont Fleuri in the east of the main island of Mahe. Morel was the first and only Seychellois to be ordained as a Capuchins -- an order within the Catholic Church. Father Morel passed away in 1996, aged 74.

Father Gustave  Lafortune, who passed away in October last year at the age of  86, was the longest serving Catholic priest, having dedicated 60 years of his life as a priest. He celebrated his diamond jubilee four months before his demise on June 30. Lafortune was welcomed into the priesthood in June 1963 in Fribourg, Switzerland, where he also did his studies.

Currently, the oldest member of the Catholic clergy is Father Edwin Mathiot, now in his 80s, who studied theology in Switzerland and was ordained in July 1966.