Kipalapala is a community in Tanzania close to Tabora. It became the location of a White Fathers mission around 1891, and now contains various Catholic institutions including a senior seminary and a priory.
Mission
R.P. Ganachan of the White Fathers penetrated the region of Unyanyembe in 1879, and tried unsuccessfully to settle at Tabora. In 1891 R.P. Guillet managed to open an orphanage at Tabora, which was soon moved to Kipalapala an hour's walk away. Jean-Baptiste-Frézal Charbonnier was ordained bishop by Bishop Léon Livinhac on 24 August 1887 at Kipalapala. He was the first bishop to be ordained in equatorial Africa.
History
The official name of Kipalapala Senior Seminary is St. Paul's Senior Seminary - Kipalapala. The seminary was founded by the society of the Missionaries of Africa, popularly known as 'The White Fathers' in 1923. Initially it was located at a small place called Utinta near Lake Tanganyika. Two years later the seminary was shifted to Kipalapala, Tabora, a place which was central and accessible for students who came for priestly formation not only from Tanzania but also from neighboring countries such as Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. Thus St. Paul's Senior Seminary at Kipalapala existed since 1925. The course in Theology takes four academic years. Since mid 1960s the seminary became one of the three inter-diocesan regional seminaries in Tanzania assigned to train seminarians in Theology. The other two seminaries for theology are Peramiho Senior Seminary in Southern Tanzania and St. Carol Lwanga Senior Seminary - Segerea in Dar es Salaam.
Seminary
St. Paul's Senior Seminary is located in Kipalapala. In the years that followed World War I the White Fathers decided that a regional seminary should be founded at Kipalapala to serve the apostolic vicariates of Tabora, Nyassa, Bangwelo and Tanganyika. When the seminary at Rubya was closed in 1929 the seminarians from the Apostolic Vicariate of Mwanza joined the seminary at Kipalapala. The seminaries were threatened by British educational regulations, and to meet them it was decided in 1928 to meet the demands of the colonial administration and conduct classes in English. Bishop Mathurin Guillemé, vicar apostolic of Nyassa, was one of the driving forces in establishing the regional seminary at Kipalapala.
