SSPX Announces New Seminary Planned in USA in the Style of Cluny

(Winona) A few days ago the Society of St. Pius X presented a project to build a new Seminary in the USA.  The St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary will be set up in Buckingham County in the state of Virginia. The new construction has become necessary because of the current shortage of space in the current structure.  The new seminary will offer room for 135 seminarians, to incorporate even room for the faculty and a guest house for lectures, seminars and priestly ordinations.   The internet site advertises  the New Seminary Project, it also  shows the two month old periodical Ad Orientem and a video about its progress.

The current priestly seminary in Winona was established in 1981, in order to provide for the education of interns of the north American Society.  The number of candidates became so large in the course of time that new solutions for the amount of space had to be found.  The existing seminary has a capacity for about 75 people, with a full compliment of seminarians and professors it runs to more than 100.  The orderly operation of a seminary is affected with a corresponding tightness.  For various reasons the purchase of a used ecclesiastical installation was impractical, so a new structure was decided upon.

As an essential element for the creation of an actual space for priestly formation a rural, peaceful area was sought for the seminary.  The plans and the computer model of the project is available on the internet.  The architecture of the seminary complex is based on the sober severity of the Benedictine reform movement of Cluny, as Francesco Colafemmina of Fides et Forma noted. The total cost is estimated at about 40 million dollars.

The buildings of the current seminary in Winona is being planned to serve as a school after the completion of the new seminary.  If the building proceeds as planned for the first phase of building, the move to the new seminary is planned for autumn 2014.

Text: Giuseppe Nardi
Bild: New Seminary Project
Translation English: Tancred



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