Jump to content

Sacred Heart Major Seminary

Add links
Coordinates: 42°22′27″N 83°06′41″W / 42.37417°N 83.11139°W / 42.37417; -83.11139
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Beauraing1313 (talk | contribs) at 19:10, 9 June 2017. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Sacred Heart Seminary
Location2701 West Chicago Boulevard
Detroit, Michigan
Coordinates42°22′27″N 83°06′41″W / 42.37417°N 83.11139°W / 42.37417; -83.11139
Built1923-24
ArchitectDonaldson and Meier
Architectural styleCollegiate Gothic Revival
NRHP reference No.82000553[1]
Added to NRHPDecember 2, 1982

Sacred Heart Major Seminary is a Catholic institution of higher learning associated with the Archdiocese of Detroit. It is located at 2701 West Chicago Boulevard,[2]at the western edge of the Boston-Edison Historic District in north central Detroit, Michigan.

Sacred Heart is a regional seminary: in 2016-17, 107 seminarians, representing eleven dioceses and two religious orders were enrolled in classes,[3] along with 426 lay students (full and part-time).[4] Sacred Heart Major Seminary has been accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools since 1960. The School of Theology degree programs have been accredited by the Association of Theological Schools since 1991.[5]

History

The main building of Sacred Heart Major Seminary viewed from Chicago Boulevard

On Sept. 11, 1919, Bishop Michael James Gallagher established Sacred Heart Seminary on Martin Place in Detroit.[6] The Catholic population of the city of Detroit and surrounding communities had been increasing along with the expanding automobile industry. Bishop Gallagher realized he could not rely on priests borrowed from other dioceses, nor priests imported from Europe, to staff his parishes and meet the spiritual needs of the faithful under his care. He needed a diocesan seminary to educate and form his own priests.

This first incarnation of Sacred Heart Seminary offered the first two years of high school. Junior and senior classes were added the next two years, and the first class graduated in 1922. College-level classes were added in the fall.[6]

Enrollment soon outstripped the capacity of the two cramped houses on Martin Place and later an apartment building on nearby Alexandrine Avenue. After a successful fundraising campaign in 1920-21, Bishop Gallagher purchased twenty-four acres of farmland in February 1923[7] and began construction of a new facility at the corner of Chicago Boulevard and Linwood Avenue. "It's God's work! God wills it!" the bishop exclaimed.[8] The new building opened on September 22, 1924, at the end of the trolley line across the street from one of the earliest Detroit suburbs, the exclusive Boston-Edison subdivision.[6] The first college class graduated in 1926; these graduates were ordained in 1930.[6]

Expansion

The seminary continued to grow and, by 1959, it became apparent that housing both high school and college programs in one building was infeasible. Construction was begun on another building, the Cardinal Mooney Latin School, on the southeast corner of the seminary grounds. This building was completed in 1963.[6] However, in 1970, the seminary high school was closed, leaving only the college-level program. In 1980, the seminary charter was expanded to offer associate, bachelor and graduate level degrees.[6]

Refounding

With the closing of the archdiocese's graduate-level St. John Provincial Seminary in 1988, Sacred Heart was re-founded under Cardinal Edmund Szoka, archbishop of Detroit. The seminary added a Graduate School of Theology to its College of Liberal Arts and was renamed Sacred Heart Major Seminary.[9] Cardinal Szoka commissioned extensive rehabilitation and renovation to the seminary building that included replacing 2,400 windows, replacing the electrical wiring, sandblasting the exterior, carpeting and plastering the classrooms, and expanding the parking lot to accommodate 250 vehicles.[10]

Licentiate in Sacred Theology

Two educational milestones were reached in 2004. Six academic chairs were established, including a chair of life ethics, under the leadership of rectors Most Rev. Allen Vigneron and Fr. Stephen Boguslawski. The Holy See's Congregation for Catholic Education approved Sacred Heart's offering of a Bachelor of Sacred Theology and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology. They are considered "ecclesiastical" degrees, as they are authorized by the Congregation under the seminary's aggregate relationship with the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.[11] The STL has a specialization in what has become known as the "New Evangelization." Popularized by St. John Paul II, the New Evangelization calls Catholics into a more personal, life-changing relationship with Christ, while calling the Church to proclaim the basic gospel message "with renewed vigor" to the people of the secularized, first world nations who have been losing their Christian identities.[12]

Architecture

The seminary building is built in Gothic Revival (or Collegiate neo-Gothic) architectural style, a popular style for educational buildings of the early twentieth century. The designer is Donaldson and Meier, a prominent Detroit architectural firm that designed many iconic buildings in Detroit and southeastern Michigan from 1880 until around 1930. These include the former Chancery building of the Archdiocese of Detroit, St. Aloysius Church, the David Stott building, the original Penobscot building, Cooley High School, and Most Holy Redeemer Church, all in Detroit, and the Beaumont Tower at Michigan State University.[13]

The windows of the main chapel are designed by the eminent stained glass design firm Emil Frei, Incorporated, of St. Louis, Missouri, with the windows being imported from the firm's studios in Munich, Germany.[14] Margaret Bouchez Cavanaugh, a well-known Michigan stained glass artist, designed the windows of the college and theologate chapels in the early 1990s in a contemporary style.[15]The seminary and chapel contains the largest collection of Pewabic tile in Michigan and perhaps second largest in the country after the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.[16] Major donors to the construction of the seminary included prominent Detroit families such as the Fishers, Crowleys and Van Antwerps.[6]

The seminary building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.[1]

Rectors

  1. Fr. Dennis L. Hayes (1919-1926)[6]
  2. Msgr. Daniel J. Ryan (1926-1940)[6]
  3. Msgr. Henry E. Donnelly (1940-1952)[6]
  4. Msgr. Albert A. Matyn (1952-1964)[6]
  5. Msgr. Francis X. Canfield (1964-1971)[6]
  6. Msgr. Thaddeus J. Ozog (1971-1976)[6]
  7. Most Reverend Bernard J. Harrington (1977-1985)[6]
  8. Msgr. F. Gerald Martin (1985-1988)[6]
  9. Most Reverend John Clayton Nienstedt(1988-1994)[6]
  10. Most Reverend Allen Henry Vigneron (1994-2003)[6]
  11. Fr. Steven C. Boguslawski, O.P. (2003-2006)[6]
  12. Most Reverend Jeffrey Marc Monforton (2006-2012)[6]
  13. Msgr. Todd J. Lajiness (2012–present)[6]

Programs

Sacred Heart Major Seminary offers degree programs at multiple levels. It offers a certificate in Catholic theology; basic diplomas in music ministry and in Catholic theology; a two-year undergraduate liberal arts degree, the Associate of Arts in Ministry; and three bachelor's programs: the Bachelor of Arts in Pastoral Theology, the Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy (an undergraduate liberal arts degree with a major in philosophy) and Bachelor of Philosophy (a two-year program with a major in philosophy for students who already possess a bachelor's degree).

Three Master's level degrees are offered: the Master of Arts in Pastoral Studies, Master of Arts in Theology, and Master of Divinity, along with a graduate diploma in pastoral ministry.[17]

Sacred Heart offers two ecclesiastical degrees, a Baccalaureate in Sacred Theology (STB) and the Licentiate in Sacred Theology (STL).[18] The STL, established in 2004, has a concentration in the theology and methodology of the New Evangelization. Since 2014, it has been offered exclusively to Catholic priests in a "blended format": most of the courses are taken online with the remaining courses taken during four five-week summer residency terms. For the summer term 2017, forty-two priests are enrolled from twenty-nine dioceses, eight religious communities, and six countries.[19]

Both ecclesiastical degrees are conferred by the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome through the faculty of SHMS.[20] The seminary also offers a graduate certificate in the New Evangelization for those students, ordained or lay, who wish to do studies in this field without formally enrolling in the STL program.

Miscellaneous

The seminary building makes an appearance in the cult film Detroit 9000 where it stands in for the "Longview Sanitarium."

References

  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. ^ "Driving Directions." Sacred Heart Major Seminary, June 6, 2017. https://www.shms.edu/content/driving-directions.
  3. ^ Seminarian Directory 2016-2017. Sacred Heart Major Seminary. October 2016.
  4. ^ Admissions office, Sacred Heart Major Seminary, email to editor, May 21, 2017.
  5. ^ "Accreditation." Sacred Heart Major Seminary, June 6, 2017. https://www.shms.edu/content/accreditation.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t "History" from Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
  7. ^ "Sacred Heart Seminary, Detroit, Mich.: Donaldson & Meier, Architects." The American Architect, October 5, 1927, 427.
  8. ^ "The Long Black Line: A Brief History of Sacred Heart Seminary." An unpublished manuscript from the Sacred Heart archives, 1. The history was written in 1969 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the seminary's founding.
  9. ^ "History." Sacred Heart Major Seminary. https://www.shms.edu/content/history.
  10. ^ "Seminary Facts: Renovation." Sacred Heart Major Seminary. One of a series of four handouts for visitors, 1993.
  11. ^ "History."
  12. ^ "The New Evangelization." United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. June 8, 2017. http://www.usccb.org/beliefs-and-teachings/how-we-teach/new-evangelization/
  13. ^ "Donaldson and Meier." June 8, 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donaldson_and_Meier
  14. ^ Kearns, William. "Our Chapel." Gothic (quarterly magazine produced by seminarians of Sacred Heart Seminary), silver jubilee edition 1919-1944, 19-24.
  15. ^ Bouchez-Cavanaugh, Margaret. "An Artist Reflects on Her Work at Sacred Heart Major Seminary." An unpublished manuscript in the Sacred Heart archvives,1993.
  16. ^ In a phone call by this editor to the archivist of Pewabic Pottery in 2011: the archivist stated that the shipping records of the time indicate that tile shipped to a church in Minnesota "may have contained" more tile than that shipped to Sacred Heart Seminary. She felt it would be safer to say that Sacred Heart had "one of the largest collections," or "perhaps" the second largest collection, in the United States after the Immaculate Conception basilica.
  17. ^ "Academic Programs." Sacred Heart Major Seminary. June 6, 2017. https://www.shms.edu/content/academics
  18. ^ "Academic Programs."
  19. ^ STL Summer Session 2017 Orientation Guide. An digital manuscript produced by the dean of studies office of Sacred Heart Major Seminary, June 2017, 19.
  20. ^ "Academic Programs."

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sacred Heart Major Seminary.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sacred_Heart_Major_Seminary&oldid=784723740"