History

The History of St. Louis Preparatory Seminary

In 1931, the first St. Louis Preparatory Seminary, the present Kenrick-Glennon Seminary building, opened on the same spacious grounds as the second Kenrick. This facility housed the last two years of high school and four full years of college. The first two years of high school were reinstated at the refurbished Washington Avenue location, now known as the Cathedral Latin School. It was conducted by members of the Archdiocesan clergy.

In 1947, Cardinal Glennon's successor, Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter closed the Latin School, and established six-year programs in the two Archdiocesan seminaries. Prep thus comprised four years of high school and two years of college, while Kenrick comprised two years of college and four years of theology.

In 1957, Archbishop Ritter opened a new facility for the high school, at 5200 Shrewsbury Avenue, on the same spacious grounds as Kenrick and the old Prep. Simultaneously, he effected a division of the Archdiocesan seminary system into three separate institutions. The new Prep was a four-year high school. The old Prep became a four-year college, within two years to be known as Cardinal Glennon College. Kenrick Seminary continued as a four-year theologate. Cardinal Glennon College received full accreditation from the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools in 1961.

The late 1950s and the early 1960s were boom years for vocational recruitment. By 1964, better than five hundred students crowded the small Prep high school facility in Shrewsbury. In response, in 1965, Cardinal Ritter created yet another Archdiocesan high school seminary, in north St. Louis County.

St. Louis Preparatory Seminary North (its counterpart in Shrewsbury was subsequently called Prep South) was administered by members of the Archdiocesan clergy. It held its first classes in the basement of the old Sacred Heart School building, on North Jefferson Street in Florissant. A year later, it moved to its new facility on 3500 Saint Catherine Street, also in Florissant. Today this facility houses Saint Thomas the Apostle Church and School. Notably, Prep North, unlike its counterpart, Prep South, accepted non-clerical students, who formed a major part of its student body.

In 1966, as part of the reform of seminaries mandated by the Second Vatican Council, Cardinal Ritter authorized Kenrick Seminary to enter an experimental arrangement with the Saint Louis University Divinity School. Kenrick students, having first finished two years of study at the seminary, and still retaining residence there, were to take classes and earn degrees at the Divinity School. The arrangement, however, for a variety of reasons, proved unsatisfactory. In 1970, under Cardinal Ritter's successor, John J. Cardinal Carberry, it was discontinued. In 1973, a reconstituted, free-standing Kenrick Seminary received full accreditation, both from the Association of Theological Schools in the United States and Canada, and from the North Central Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools.

The year 1980 saw the sale of two extensive, mostly-wooded portions of the three-seminary campus to the Cardinal Ritter Institute and to private developers. As a result, the former seminary property is today the site of a nursing facility and apartment complexes for the elderly, as well as the site of numerous private homes, apartments, condominiums, and a small shopping plaza.

In September 1986, Cardinal Carberry's successor, Archbishop John L. May, after wide consultation, made the determination to consolidate the seminary system of the Archdiocese. In the spring of 1987, Kenrick Seminary moved from its location on Kenrick Road to the Cardinal Glennon College building on Glennon Drive, the present Kenrick-Glennon Seminary. In the process, Kenrick retained its status as a free-standing school of theology. The College, however, closed its free-standing undergraduate program, and established a collaborative-model program, in conjunction with the Saint Louis University College of Philosophy and Letters. College seminary students now attend Saint Louis University for classes but reside at the Kenrick- Glennon Seminary complex, where they receive their human and spiritual formation.

As part of the same consolidation of the Archdiocesan system, St. Louis Preparatory Seminary North was closed in the spring of 1987. The two high school seminaries were amalgamated that fall at the facility in Shrewsbury, known once again simply as the St. Louis Preparatory Seminary. Even this measure, however, could not stop the spiral of mounting costs and decreasing enrollment. In January 1991, Archbishop May reluctantly announced the closing of the high school seminary, to take place that May.

After extensive renovation of the Kenrick-Glennon building, the New Start—as Archbishop May called the entire program of consolidation—was in place by September 1, 1987. A Board of Trustees for Kenrick-Glennon Seminary began formal operation on October 11, 1988. In the spring of 1995, Archbishop Justin Rigali announced that after 177 years of collaboration between the Vincentian Community and the Archdiocese in the running of the Seminary, the Archdiocese will henceforth assume full responsibility.

The Vincentian Community for its part indicated that it would continue to make personnel available for certain positions in the Seminary faculty. The Archdiocese of St. Louis, the Board of Trustees, and the Seminary staff remain fully committed to the mission of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary and have redoubled their investment in its future.