Coming home: First-year seminarians returning to historic Paca Street location

After an absence of half a century, resident seminarians will soon return to the historic site of America’s first seminary.

An $8 million project to open the Blessed Father Michael J. McGivney Propaedeutic House of Formation is nearing completion along Paca Street in Baltimore, with the first seminarians expected to arrive in August.

The program will serve approximately 12 first-year seminarians from at least five U.S. dioceses, including the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Two Sulpician priests who will work with the seminarians will also live there. 

The seminarians will be enrolled in the new propaedeutic stage of priestly formation promulgated by Pope Francis, which focuses on human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral formation.

St. Mary’s Seminary, opened in 1791 under the direction of the Society of St. Sulpice, formed many generations of American priests over its long history. They included Father McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus for whom the new propaedeutic house is named.

Patrick E. Kelly, supreme knight of the Knights of Columbus, gave permission for St. Mary’s to use the founder’s name for the house, and the name was also endorsed by Archbishop William E. Lori, supreme chaplain of the Knights of Columbus.

St. Mary’s Seminary opened a second campus in 1929 in Roland Park. After the program was consolidated at Roland Park in 1974, the massive seminary building on Paca Street was demolished. Three buildings were retained: the historic chapel that was erected in 1808, a house where St. Elizabeth Ann Seton once lived and a former convent for the Sisters of Divine Providence who served at the seminary. 

Sulpician Father Shawn D. Gould, a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and director of the McGivney House, said the house will include the renovated convent where seminarians will live in private rooms with bathrooms shared between two rooms. The space will also house an adoration chapel. 

What is now the visitors center will be where coursework will be completed, and Masses and other liturgies will be celebrated at the historic Chapel of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. There will also be access to private and semi-private gardens, Father Gould said.

Seminarians assigned to McGivney House will likely serve at the Baltimore Basilica, according to Sulpician Father Phillip J. Brown, president-rector of St. Mary’s Seminary and University.

“That has some historic resonances about how the formation of priests was done going back centuries,” he said. “So we think it’s a unique opportunity for renewal of priestly formation.”

Propaedeutic seminarians will likely partner with urban missionaries at the basilica-based Source of All Hope program that reaches out to people experiencing homelessness.

“The guys are going to get to know the poor in Baltimore,” Father Gould said. “Some of them may actually do street ministry.”

At the same time, the priest added, the gardens outside the McGivney House will offer seminarians private space for prayer and contemplation. 

McGivney House will have a special focus on Marian devotion in keeping with Sulpician tradition, with seminarians participating in a year-end pilgrimage to France. 

The house is a collaboration of Sulpician institutions and will primarily serve St. Mary’s Seminary and the Theological College at The Catholic University of America in Washington, Father Brown said.

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

Also see: Back to basics: New stage of formation helps shape spiritually grounded seminarians

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