Defying trend, Cardinal Bevilacqua buys seminary outside his diocese

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 11, 1998 by Ralph Cipriano

NORTHAMPTON, Pa. -- In an era when many dioceses were closing or consolidating seminaries, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua of Philadelphia has bucked the national trend by quietly spending $4 million to buy a second seminary outside archdiocesan boundaries.

As a result, 28 seminarians will don cassocks this month to begin a year of prayer and spirituality on the 463.5-acre grounds of the former Mary Immaculate Seminary. It is situated amid wooded rolling hills north of Allentown, Pa., in the Allentown diocese, which adjoins the Philadelphia archdiocese. The archdiocese had rented the property for use by its seminarians since 1991.

According to property records, the former Mary Immaculate Seminary was purchased in 1996 by the Philadelphia archdiocese from the Vincentians of Germantown, Pa.

The archdiocese paid another $75,000 for furnishings and equipment in the deal, which was not made public in Philadelphia, according to Cathy Rossi, archdiocesan director of communications.

The 28 seminarians who will spend the 1998-99 academic year at the property hail from five states and include 13 men from Philadelphia, Rossi said. Bevilacqua decided to purchase the former Mary Immaculate Seminary to provide an isolated retreat, a year of spiritual immersion, for future priests, she said.

The facility, renamed Mary Immaculate Center, is also used for retreats and a variety of workshops and education programs for lay people and clergy.

Bevilacqua believes that seminarians must learn to "deal with the rigors of parish life today" by learning to turn inward and "find inner peace," Rossi said.

Rossi said the idea for such a program was inspired by a call from Pope John Paul II for a strengthening of spirituality among priests.

Nationally and in Philadelphia, seminary enrollments have dropped precipitously since the 1960s. In 19671 enrollment in graduate seminaries, diocesan and religious, totaled 8,159; in 1997, enrollment totaled 3,158. During that period, five graduate-level seminaries have dosed or merged, according to CARA, the Washington-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

The purchase was made while the Philadelphia archdiocese is undergoing a decade-long downsizing, Since 1993, the archdiocese has closed 14 churches and eight parish schools, mostly in innercity neighborhoods dominated by African-Americans and Latinos.

In an ongoing process, some 41 committees of priests and lay people are studying allocation of parish resources throughout the archdiocese, including the possibility of additional closings or mergers. Rossi said the process also allows for developing "creative alternatives" such as evangelization centers, or building new parishes where population is increasing.

That process has resulted in preliminary plans to close three more city churches and three additional city parish schools, effective next year.

The cardinal, however, says the church should not stagnate while it is downsizing, Rossi said in written answers to NCR questions. "Despite the need to close or consolidate some parishes, the archdiocese must remain open to emerging pastoral needs and initiatives," she said.

The sale of the former seminary was reported in the Allentown Morning Call, but not in Philadelphia newspapers or the Philadelphia archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Standard and Times.

That's because the archdiocese was "sensitive to the position of the Vincentian Fathers at the time of the sale," Rossi said. The archdiocese and Vincentians prepared a news release dated June 1996 that was "available to members of the media upon request," Rossi said. Normally, news releases are mailed or faxed to news outlets.

Rossi said Bevilacqua had thought it "fiscally prudent and philosophically justified" to buy the Mary Immaculate property given the inherent value of the property and its tremendous real estate value.

The original asking price for the seminary was $5.5 million, Rossi said.

The property, located in Northampton County, was the site at which Vincentians were trained from 1939 to 1990. The year the seminary closed, 1990, only 18 seminarians remained.

Vincentian officials declined comment on the sale.

Some Catholics in Philadelphia, however, criticized the purchase, saying it was another in a series of questionable and secretive expenditures.

Philadelphia Catholics who had previously criticized the cardinal for closing parishes and schools were unenthusiastic about Bevilacqua's latest purchase.

"It's very typical of Archbishop Bevilacqua to make obscenely expensive purchases to benefit a very small number of male priests without telling anyone," said Eileen DiFranco, a member of a cluster planning committee who resigned in June in protest over the probability that more inner-city parishes will be closed.

DiFranco was also critical of the monastic setting for future priests.

"It's also typical of the Catholic hierarchy to find ways to set priests apart from their flock," she said.

"I think it's scandalous the way he spends money. I think it's scandalous the way he lives," said Mary-Ellen Creamer, speaking of Bevilacqua, who reportedly lives alone in a 30-room Victorian villa. Creamer, of Philadelphia, is a member of the Catholic Lay Alliance to Save Schools and Parishes, known as CLASSP.