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gon gon/I. Signs from God in the Life of an African Child

Question 1.17

1.17 Why did you leave Nancy before the end of your theology studies?

Indeed, I ought to have finished my theology studies in Nancy. Moreover, I remember that at the end of my studies in philosophy, I seriously considered earning a bachelor’s degree in that subject, which I liked very much. However, Archbishop Tchidimbo asked me not to pursue that plan.

Obedience helped me to mature. It redirected my attention and my heart’s desire toward the Sacred Scriptures. Furthermore, my desire to be a priest became more attuned with my new aspiration to study the Word of God. Thanks to a Protestant German friend, Horst BĂŒltzing-slöwen, I gradually discovered the study of the Bible. At the time, Horst was studying biblical exegesis at the University of TĂŒbingen, and we often spent our vacation together with the Mallards, who owned a second home on the coast, near Arromanches-les-Bains. Little by little, I was inoculated with the virus of biblical studies, which grew increasingly contagious until the end of my theological studies!

However, relations between Guinea and France, especially the relationship between SĂ©kou TourĂ© and General de Gaulle, were becoming so complicated that I had to leave Nancy. Once again, my country’s political troubles obliged me to change my place of study abruptly; so I left for Senegal and went to the seminary in SĂ©bikhotane, not far from Dakar, for my last two years as a seminarian, from October 1967 to June 1969. Even there, one could sense the wind of the revolutionary movement of May 1968.

During my stay in SĂ©bikhotane I was ordained a sub-deacon. The ceremony took place in January 1969 in the cathedral in Dakar and was presided over by Hyacinthe Cardinal Thiandoum. Diaconal ordination was then conferred upon me by Bishop Augustin Sagna in April 1969 in Brin, Senegal, in the Diocese of Ziguinchor. There were a dozen of us deacons, happy and resolved to love God.

Most of the young deacons came from the dioceses of Dakar, ThiĂšs, and Ziguinchor. There were two of us from Guinea, Father Augustin Tounkara and I. The mood at SĂ©bikhotane was very warm and studious, in an African environment that benefited from the spiritual proximity and liturgical quality of the Benedictine abbey of Keur Moussa, which was part of the Solesmes Congregation.

In fact, the year of my diaconate was full of emotion and inner fear and trembling. I could already see the hour of my priestly ordination coming and the special moment of my First Mass. How could I not tremble at the thought of being a priest, being like Christ, pronouncing the same words as he? During this same period, Archbishop Tchidimbo informed me that immediately after my ordination he would send me to Rome to study the Sacred Scriptures.

You can imagine my joy and happiness upon hearing this news. Never would I have dreamed that one day I would be in Rome, near the tomb of Peter, and that I would see the pope with my own eyes! The little boy in Ourous who watched the priests gather in the village church seemed so far away. . . and yet nothing about me had really changed.