I'm Valentine Cascarino

Valentine Cascarino was born in the Cameroon of a Muslim father and a Catholic mother. He moved to South Africa in his youth and settled in Johannesburg where he was an altar server at the Cathedral of Christ the King – later getting confirmed there. He did courses in media and writing at the universities of Witwatersrand and Rhodes and later with the International Centre for Journalists in Washington. He worked as a freelance journalist for Homeless Talk, Saturday Star, Mail & Guardian, City Press and Sunday Times newspapers in South Africa. In his late twenties, while working as a talk-show host with Radio Veritas, he eventually decided to join the Franciscan Order after several years of resisting his calling. He studied at Saint John Vianney Seminary in Pretoria where he obtained BA degrees in both Philosophy and Theology. In 2016, soon after his priestly ordination, the Franciscans sent him for further studies at the Pontifical University of St Anthony in Rome, where he obtained a Masters in Formation, as well as a Licence and a Doctorate in Theology. He currently serves as formator and lecturer at Saint Bonaventure University in Lusaka as well as summer substitute confessor at the Papal Basilica of Saint John Lateran in Rome.