St. Charles Lwanga Major Seminary is the center of formation of future priests in Namibia. This new institute, as an integral part of the Universal Church, will help the Word incarnate in the particular cultural, social and political context of the nation. The integral training given here shall help them reach out to everyone as friends, brothers and sisters following the model of Jesus the Teacher, the Good Shepherd and the Liberator. It was opened for the first time as an Archdiocesan Seminary of Windhoek on 28 January 1997. In the past, it was a boarding house for secondary school children. Then it was changed into the Pastoral Centre for the Archdiocese of Windhoek. The Namibian Catholic Bishops Conference (NCBC) in its extraordinary plenary session held in August 1997 decided that the Archdiocesan Seminary of St. Charles Lwanga should become an Inter-diocesan Seminary. The Congregation for Evangelization of Peoples raised it to the status of an Inter-diocesan Major Seminary in June 1998 and Fr.Thomas Manninezhath CMI was appointed as its first Rector in October 1998 (Prot.N.4557/98). Fr. Benny Karuvelil CMI replaced him as Rector as on January 1, 2009.
A landmark in the history of the Seminary was its Accreditation by Namibia Qualifications Authority (NQA) on the 18th of November 2010. Consequently the State approves the Diploma and Bachelors Degree in Theology as well as in Philosophy that the Seminary offers.
Nevertheless St. Charles is only in its fledgling stage and it has to take deep roots in Namibia's virgin soil.