In a final tribute to their 118 years of service at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park, the Society of St. Sulpice, Province of the United States, the Sulpicians, hosted a farewell celebration May 13, with a prayer service and luncheon to officially end their history of staffing the school.
More than 500 alumni, friends and supporters of the seminary attended the event. The celebrant for the prayer service was Sulpician Father Gladstone Stevens, outgoing president-rector of the seminary. Homilist was Sulpician U.S. Provincial Superior Very Rev. John C. Kemper.
Father Kemper noted the major impact the Sulpicians played in the life of the Catholic Church in Northern California and the Pacific Rim over the more than 100 years of staffing the seminary.
“At St. Patrick’s we have educated church leaders, both priests and bishops in the Sulpician tradition,” Father Kemper said in an announcement. “We are proud of these leaders and of our contribution in the region. But now, due to circumstances beyond our control, the Society of St. Sulpice must bid St. Patrick’s Seminary… Adieu! We wish God’s blessing upon the new faculty and administration as they begin to build on the 118-year foundation built by generations of dedicated Sulpicians.”
The Sulpicians informed Archbishop Cordileone on Oct. 21, 2016, that they would cease to be part of St. Patrick’s as of June 30, 2017.
In a statement on Oct. 22, the archdiocese said, “We sincerely thank the Sulpicians for their very long service to the archdiocese and to those other dioceses served by the seminary. Before being informed of this decision, the Board of Trustees had intended to begin discussions that might lead to new seminary administrative models with the society. We regret that we did not have the opportunity to explore the possibility of forming a new collaborative model with the Sulpicians.”
Full story at Catholic SF.
Got to love the Sulps, eggheads that they are. They scheduled this on a Saturday such that most alumni in parochial ministry couldn’t come, given that we’re busy with baptisms and weddings that day. Glad to hear, and now read, that plenty of other folks were able to attend the send-off.
it would seem that priests forming future priests would want to celebrate their leavetaking with the highest prayer of the church, the Mass.
in october 2016 the national catholic register covered the situation at the seminary but found that fathers stevens and kemper were unavailable to the staff reporter who sought to round out the story.
I haven’t followed the story of why the Sulpicians decided to leave St. Patrick’s Seminary. What’s the scoop?
“According to information obtained by the Register, the Sulpicians’ unilateral decision to end their involvement with St. Patrick’s followed after the seminary’s board of trustees expressed concerns that the Sulpicians did not have the capacity to deliver on the administrative changes required by the regional collegiate accrediting agency before time ran out…. [Sulpician Provincial] Father Kemper informed the board’s trustees Oct. 21 that the order was “not open to renegotiating the model.” The provincial said St. Patrick’s Seminary would not be a Sulpician seminary unless a Sulpician was the rector.”
https://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/sulpicians-split-from-st.-patricks-seminary-over-governance-dispute
Eventually due to low numbers the property will be sold to make room for the new Facebook corporate expansion.
Ann,
Unless you know something I don’t, I doubt that Facebook would buy the property since their property isn’t contiguous with St. Pat’s.
Regardless, I have faith in Archbishop Cordileone. It will take a few years, but I foresee his seminarian numbers rising.
Problem solved give the Seminary to the F.S.S.P. or the Institute of Christ the King and you will have a waiting list of young men willing to become holy priests of the Roman Church and offering the True Mass of All Times. Both the F.S.S.P. and The Institute have run out of room and have to put the young men on a waiting list, the Novus Ordo seminaries have the opposite problem.
At a recent archdiocese retreat, Fr. Stevens was a speaker. In introducing him there was mention of a new project that he will be undertaking as he leaves his position at St. Patrick’s. Forgive me if I don’t have the wording correct here– it’s a textbook or course having to do with the formation of seminarians. I didn’t quite get if it was for the USCCB or what, but it’s new and it’s for the whole country. Please pray for his success in the endeavor!
luvgabe: That is a very interesting article. As an alum I have heard nothing about this accreditation deadline.
TVT:
Sounds like Fr. Stevens is involved in the upcoming edition of the Plan for Priestly Formation. It’s a US document that gets updated every five years or so. I know the USCCB is in the process of revising it, sounds like Fr. Stevens is part of the committee.