St. Vincent's Seminary (Germantown)

Last updated

St. Vincent's Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a former seminary of the Congregation of the Mission, established to train priests for the Eastern United States.

Contents

History

The Vincentians arrived in the United States in 1816, among the first groups of Catholic clergy to serve in the then-missionary territory of the United States. Their first foundation was in Baltimore, Maryland. [1]

One goal of the Congregation since its founding has been the training of clergy, both for themselves and for the local diocese, at their own expense when necessary. Thus, after the establishment of an independent Province for the United States in 1835, the growing number of local bishops in the country began to request their help in running seminaries they had founded but did not have the means, either financially or in terms of manpower, to operate. In this way, members of the Congregation arrived in Philadelphia in 1841 at the invitation of Francis Patrick Kenrick, the Bishop of Philadelphia, to run St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. A part of Kenrick's invitation had been the offer to allow a house of formation for the Congregation to be opened in the diocese. [2]

The Vincentians served there until the appointment of the Superior of the school, Thaddeus Amat y Brusi, as the first Bishop of Los Angeles in 1852. At that point, dealing with their own shortage of personnel, and also being dissatisfied with the organization of the school under the bishop, they decided to withdraw from the seminary. [2]

In 1851 the Congregation had acquired land in Germantown Township, then still a rural suburb of Philadelphia, which was to become the center of their operations on the Eastern seaboard, [3] and there opened the Parish of St. Vincent de Paul. [4] In 1868 it was decided to move the formation program for new members of the Congregation from Missouri to Germantown. This included both the novitiate and the scholasticate (the college-level facility), which came to become known as St. Vincent Seminary, which were established adjacent to the parish church. [2] It then operated for over a century at the location. [3]

Current status

Due to the dwindling numbers of students, the seminary was closed as an educational institution during the late 20th century. The building has been converted to a care facility for the aged members of the Eastern Province of the Congregation, as well as serving as the headquarters of the province. [3] [5]

Related Research Articles

Congregation of the Mission Catholic society of apostolic life of priests and brothers

The Congregation of the Mission is a Roman Catholic society of apostolic life founded by Vincent de Paul. It is associated with the Vincentian Family, a loose federation of organizations which claims Vincent de Paul as their founder or Patron. They are popularly known as Vincentians, Paules, Lazarites, Lazarists, or Lazarians.

Francis Kenrick

Francis Patrick Kenrick was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as the third Bishop of the Diocese of Philadelphia (1842–1851) and the sixth Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Baltimore (1851–1863).

Joseph Rosati

Joseph Rosati was an Italian-born Catholic missionary to the United States who served as the first bishop of the Diocese of Saint Louis between 1826 and 1843. A member of the Congregation of the Mission, in 1820 he was appointed Provincial Superior over all the Vincentians in the United States.

Michael OConnor (bishop)

Michael O'Connor, S.J., was an Irish-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States and a member of the Society of Jesus. He served as the Bishop of Pittsburgh and briefly as the Bishop of Erie (1853).

Thaddeus Amat y Brusi

Thaddeus Amat y Brusi C.M., or in Spanish Tadeu Amat y Brusi was a Spanish Roman Catholic cleric who became the first Bishop of Los Angeles, in California.

Stephen V. Ryan Catholic bishop (1825-1896)

Stephen Vincent Ryan, C.M. was a Canadian-born American prelate of the Catholic Church. He served as Bishop of Buffalo, New York from 1868 until his death in 1896.

Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh

The Diocese of Pittsburgh is a Latin Church ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Catholic Church in Western Pennsylvania established on August 11, 1843. The diocese includes 188 parishes and 225 churches in the counties of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Greene, Lawrence, and Washington, an area of 3,786 square miles (9,810 km2) with a Catholic population of 630,033 as of 2019. The cathedral church of the diocese is the Cathedral of Saint Paul. As of July 2021, the diocese had 194 active priests.

Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem Diocese of the Episcopal Church (United States)

The Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem covers fourteen counties in Pennsylvania to the north and west of Philadelphia. The current bishop, the Rt. Rev. Kevin D. Nichols, was elected as Bishop on April 28, 2018, and consecrated on September 15, 2018. The cathedral is the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The pro-Cathedral is St. Stephen's, Wilkes-Barre. Between the 1970s and the 2020s, the diocese has been a major epicenter for clerical sexual abuse claims regarding priests, youth leaders, and organists, with multiple thousands of criminal charges against clergy and lay employees.

Vincentian Sisters of Charity

The Vincentian Sisters of Charity were an American religious congregation of Religious Sisters founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1902 to serve the Slovak American immigrant population in Pennsylvania.

Michael Domenec

Michael Domenec, DD, C.M. was the second Roman Catholic bishop of the diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and the only bishop of the short-lived Diocese of Allegheny.

Frederic P. Gehring, C.M. was an American Catholic priest who served as a military chaplain during the Guadalcanal Campaign of World War II. As well as serving as a parish priest, he was also for a time the National Chaplain for the Catholic War Veterans and the 1st Marine Division Association.

St. Charles Borromeo Seminary

St. Charles Borromeo Seminary is a Roman Catholic seminary in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. It is named after Saint Charles Borromeo and it is the seminary of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The seminary is accredited by both the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada.

Leo-Raymond de Neckere Roman Catholic archbishop

Leo-Raymond de Neckère, C.M., was a Belgian-born prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who served as Bishop of New Orleans from 1830 until his death in 1833.

Missionary Servants of the Most Holy Trinity (S.T.) is a religious congregation of men in the Roman Catholic Church, whose headquarters is located in Silver Spring, Maryland. Its members are Brothers, and ordained priests. Members engage in missionary work with the poor and abandoned in both the United States and Latin America. One of their principal aims is to promote the missionary vocation of the laity. They are also known for supporting parish ministry and for promoting social justice. Presently, the Superior General is the Very Rev. Michael K. Barth, S.T. The Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity is an affiliated women's congregation.

St. Vincent's Seminary and College was an educational facility in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which had two components: a college, providing a secular education of young men of the region; and a seminary, for the training of candidates for the Catholic priesthood to serve in the Midwestern United States. The school was operated by the priests of the Congregation of the Mission, commonly referred to as the Vincentian Fathers, as a part of their mission since their founding in 17th-century France by St. Vincent de Paul. It operated from 1838 to 1979.

The Seminary of Mary Immaculate was a former Catholic seminary, located in Northampton, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It opened in 1939 to train candidates for the Congregation of the Mission, commonly called the Vincentian Fathers, and operated until 1990. The facilities then served as a retreat center.

St. Marys of the Barrens Catholic Church (Perryville, Missouri) Church in Missouri , United States

St. Mary's of the Barrens Church is a Roman Catholic Church and former Seminary in Perryville, Missouri. St. Mary's is the historic seat of the American Vincentians and since its establishment in 1818 has served as an educational institution, a Vincentian house of formation, and a Vincentian community residence. The complex of eight contributing buildings, one contributing site, and two contributing structures was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995 as St. Mary's of the Barrens Historic District.

Andrew E. Bellisario

Andrew Eugene Bellisario is an American prelate of the Roman Catholic Church who has been serving as Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Anchorage-Juneau in Alaska since 2020.

Francesco (Francis) Cellini was a member of the Vincentian Order of priests connected to mission work serving the mid-western section of the United States during the mid 1800s. Cellini was born in the province of Ascoli Piceno, Marche Region, Italy. By 1818 he was the chaplain of the Hospital Santo Spirito in Rome in the Rione neighborhood near Vatican City. That same year he was accorded the habit of the Vincentian Order. After serving in Louisiana, Missouri, and Illinois, Cellini's ministerial work concluded with a posting in St. Louis, where he was made Vicar General of the St. Louis Diocese.

Dennis Durning C.S.Sp. was an American, Catholic Bishop and Holy Ghost Father, a member of Congregation of the Holy Ghost under the Immaculate Heart of Mary, also Spiritans (C.S.Sp.), who served as a bishop of Arusha from 1963 until his resignation in 1989.

References

  1. ↑ "History of the Eastern Province USA". Eastern Province USA Vincentians. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  2. 1 2 3 Poole, Stafford, C.M.; Rybolt, John, C.M., Editor-in-Chief (1988). "II: Ad Cleri Disciplinam: The Vincentian Seminary Apostolate in the United States 1815-1987". The American Vincentians: A Popular History of the Congregation of the Mission in the United States. Brooklyn, New York: Vincentian Studies Institute. pp. 118–120. ISBN   0-911782-61-3.{{cite book}}: |first2= has generic name (help)
  3. 1 2 3 "St. Vincent's Seminary". Germantown Vincentians. 17 May 2011. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  4. ↑ "About Us". St. Vincent de Paul R.C. Church. Retrieved 1 March 2013.
  5. ↑ "Congregation of the Mission-United States-East". Famvin. Retrieved 1 March 2013.

Coordinates: 40°02′32″N75°10′00″W / 40.04230°N 75.16669°W / 40.04230; -75.16669

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.