Chicago Archdiocese announces closing of St. Joseph Seminary

Seven years after dedicating the new St. Joseph College Seminary on the campus of Loyola University Chicago, the archdiocese has announced that it will close at the end of the 2019 academic year.

The college seminary has 20 students this year, 13 of whom are from the Archdiocese of Chicago, and was expecting a small enrollment class next year, according to the Jan. 14 press release announcing the closure.

All of the students will be welcomed at St. John Vianney College Seminary at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, if they choose to attend there, said Father John Kartje, rector-president of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary.

Many of the roughly 200 seminarians at Mundelein, the largest major seminary in the United States, come from St. John Vianney College Seminary, Kartje said. He believes that college seminarians from the Archdiocese of Chicago will fit in well there, as will the five St. Joseph seminarians from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee and the two from the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church.

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