Storied Catholic seminary building still stands

Surrounded by a secluded wooded campus on the shores of Lake Johanna, the 300 young men at Nazareth Hall in Arden Hills arose at the sound of the 6:05 a.m. bell and readied themselves quickly. By 6:30 a.m. they were gathered on their knees in the chapel when the bell rang the Angelus, ready for Mass and Communion before breakfast. For these teenage seminarians, classes in Latin, Gregorian chant and religion, alongside the sciences, math and social studies, followed on a warm day in May of 1960.

Beginning in 1923, Nazareth Hall was the minor seminary of the Archdiocese of St. Paul. Following a plan laid out by the American bishops and the Vatican, young men were to follow a 12-year plan of priestly preparations. For six years, they would attend the minor seminary, Nazareth Hall, completing four years of high school and two collegiate years. After their time at Nazareth Hall, students would move to the major seminary, St. Paul Seminary, for six more years of study. Across the country, there were more than 270 minor seminaries by the early 1960s. Some of their students would become priests; many would take their religious training into other vocations. Over the decades, seminary leadership became more aware of this reality and sought to make the curriculum rigorous and broad enough to be suitable preparation for life outside the priesthood.

For six years, a student at Nazareth Hall studied, lived and prayed between marble floors and vaulted ceilings. The chapel was naturally the most opulent, featuring walls with rust-red marble imported from North Africa and white marble columns. Its stained-glass windows illustrated biblical themes about boyhood. Elsewhere, statues represented Christ in his teenage years. Together, the seminary’s director explained in 1960, the student experience was designed “to prepare the young man spiritually, intellectually and socially so he can make a mature decision about his future.”

Big changes came to the seminary in 1968, when collegiate seminarians were moved to the newly-opened St. John Vianney Seminary at St. Thomas College. At that point in time, young men preparing for the priesthood would spend four years at Nazareth, four years at St. John Vianney, and four years at the St. Paul Seminary to complete their training. The same year, enrollment in the high school program fell dramatically from 148 to 105 boys, but Archbishop Leo Byrne insisted that the minor seminary would continue. Meanwhile, minor seminaries across the country were closing due to declining enrollment. Young men seemed less inclined to pursue a vocation that was in flux, and their parents were less likely to believe that age 14 was an appropriate time to choose a lifelong career.

By the following school year, Archbishop Byrne had changed his mind, moving to close the school and pivot to a guidance program for vocations that spanned all of the Catholic high schools in the archdiocese. The property was sold in 1970 to Northwestern College (now University of Northwestern), which repurposed the campus for Christian college students who now study and worship in the same historic building. Many of the uniquely Catholic and sacred elements of the two chapels on campus were removed before its sale. Today, the altar from the chapel can be seen at St. Michael church in St. Michael.

Luiken is a Catholic and a historian with a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. She loves exploring and sharing the hidden histories that touch our lives every day.