Holy Rosary Minor Seminary (also named Seminario del Santisimo Rosario) is a Roman Catholic seminary or a house of formation for high school and college would-be priests run by the Archdiocese of Caceres in Naga City, in the Philippines.
Holy Rosary Minor Seminary (also named Seminario del Santisimo Rosario) is a Roman Catholic seminary or a house of formation for high school and college would-be priests run by the Archdiocese of Caceres in Naga City, in the Philippines.
Founded on March 7, 1793 by Archbishop Antonio Gallego of Manila, Holy Rosary Minor Seminary started as Casa de Clerigos (House of Clerics) in a place called Padian (now, Caceres St.) near the Bicol River. [1] It was canonically erected as Seminario Conciliar de Nueva Caceres in compliance with the Tridentine Decree that every diocese must have a seminary. In 1840, it was transferred from Padian to its present site along Elias Angeles St. When the seminary building opened in 1793 it was made of wood, bamboo and nipa which a certain bishop noted as "combustible and of non-durable materials". [1] The initial staff was composed of a rector (provisor and vicar general of the diocese); a vice-rector(a Franciscan professor) and two other professors who taught Latin and Humanities. In nine years after its opening, it had 11 deacons, 24 subdeacon and 247 minor seminarians. In 1855, the seminary building was damaged by a strong earthquake and a fire razed it the ground in 1863. [1] In 1865, Nueva Caceres Bishop Francisco Gainza rebuilt and expanded the new seminary building. The Vincentian Fathers (C.M.) took over the management and formation of the seminary in 1865 to become a seminary-college and center of education for lay people in Southern Luzon. In 1925, Bishop Francisco Reyes renamed it as Seminario del Santissimo Rosario and abolished the College and retained the Conciliar Seminary. It was partly damaged when it was bombed by the Japanese during the second war.
In 1964, it was renamed Holy Rosary Minor Seminary under the new management of Diocese of Clegy. In 1970, a powerful typhoon extensively damaged the Seminary and was rebuilt under the leadership of Archbishop Teopisto Alberto.
It was declared as a National Historical Landmark on June 11, 1978 by then National Historical Institute as a tribute to its having produced martyrs, patriots and heroes like Jose Maria Panganiban, Tomas Arejola and nine of the fifteen Bikol Martyrs namely, Gabriel Prieto, P. Severino Diaz, Leon Hernandez, Mariano Ordinanza, Mariano Arana, Camilo Jacob, Ramon Abella, Domingo Abella and Tomas Prieto. [2] Among its prominent alumni are Bishop Jorgr Barlin, the first Filipino bishop, Cardinal Jose Tomas Sanchez and 21 other bishops in the country.
On September 5, 1988 the late Archbishop Leonardo Legaspi renamed it back to Holy Rosary Minor Seminary and inaugurated the Museo del Seminario Conciliar de Nueva Caceres which houses altars and statues, books and vestments used by bishops and priests.
The two-storey brick structure is rectangular in plan with eclectic Italian Renaissance ornamentation. Its composition is symmetrical with a central block and indented right and left wings. Its ground floor facade is a series of brick arches quite similar to Florentine Renaissance architecture. On the roof level is a brick cornice above the frieze composed of triglyphs and regula, elements from classical Greek Architecture. The frieze is supported by a stylized Doric crenelated brick pilaster. The second floor facade has verandahs supported by a projection of brick cornices with ornamental ironwork fern design ledge. The doors are topped by corniced rain-stopper.
On October 17, 2003, the late Archbishop Legaspi opened the Bishop Domingo Collantes Library with a 30,000-book collection and can sit 100 readers in its 280 sq. m. hall.
The seminary offers Junior High School (Grades 7–10) and Senior High School (Grades 11–12) in accordance with the K-12 curriculum. It offers the General Academic Strand for Senior High School which includes Introduction to Philosophy and other courses in Journalism in preparation for the Major Seminary
Presently the Seminary is under the leadership of the Archbishop of Caceres, Rolando Tria Tirona. Its rector is Mario Arnulfo B. Gaite with the assistance of, namely: Jay Jose L. Jacinto (Director of Human Formation and also functioning as the Vice-Rector), Jay Aguilar (Director of Spiritual Formation), Rolando B. Canonce (Director of Intellectual Formation and also the Vice-Principal), with the newly appointed priest, Ace Baracena (Director of Pastoral Formation); together with former DepEd (Region 5 – Bicol) Regional Director Orfelina O. Tuy as its present principal with the teaching and non – teaching faculty and staff.
The Bicol Region, commonly shortened to Bicol and designated as Region V, is an administrative region of the Philippines. Also referred to as Bicolandia, it comprises six provinces, four on the Bicol Peninsula : Albay, Camarines Norte, Camarines Sur, and Sorsogon, and two off the shore: Catanduanes and Masbate.
Naga, officially the City of Naga or the Pilgrim City of Naga, is a 1st class independent component city in the Bicol Region of the Philippines. According to the 2020 census, it has a population of 209,170 people.
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The Archdiocese of Cáceres is a Latin Church archdiocese of the Catholic Church in the Philippines. It is a metropolitan see that comprises the Bicol Region, while directly overseeing the third, fourth, and fifth congressional districts of Camarines Sur, Naga City, Iriga City and the Municipality of Gainza. The archdiocese, having been founded in 1595 in Nueva Cáceres, is also considered one of the oldest dioceses in the Philippines with Cebu, Segovia and Manila, and once had jurisdiction that stretched from Samar in the south and Isabela Province in the north. The seat of the archdiocese is currently located in Naga City, also known as the Queen City of Bicol.
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A minor seminary or high school seminary is a secondary day or boarding school created for the specific purpose of enrolling teenage boys who have expressed interest in becoming Catholic priests. They are generally Catholic institutions, and designed to prepare boys both academically and spiritually for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. They emerged in cultures and societies where literacy was not universal, and the minor seminary was seen as a means to prepare younger boys in literacy for later entry into the major seminary.
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Nueva Cáceres, officially the City of Nueva Cáceres, was a colonial Spanish city in the Philippines. Established by Captain Pedro de Sanchez in 1575, the city was named in honor of Governor-General Francisco de Sande who was a native of Cáceres, Spain. In 1595, a papal bull coming from the Vatican City created the See of Cáceres under the Archdiocese of Manila.
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The Holy Rosary Minor Seminary is the oldest Christian higher educational institute for the clergy in the Philippines established in Naga City, Camarines Sur, in the early part of the 18th century. At present, it houses 114 seminarian interns and 16 extern seminarians from the Diocese of Libmanan. From its reopening in the year 2013 after its closure during the 1980s, accepts Junior High School and Senior High School enrollment in adherence to the K-12 Program of the Department of Education.
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Francisco Caracciolo Urreta Visayas de Gainza was the 25th bishop of the Diocese of Nueva Cáceres. He was born in the city of Calahorra, in the province of Logroño, Spain.
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