St. Mary's Seminary (Perryville MO)

St. Mary’s of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri is the historic seat of the American Vincentians and since its establishment in 1818 has served as an educational institution, a Vincentian house of formation, and a Vincentian community residence.

The Vincentians first came to the United States in 1816 under the leadership of two Italians, Felix DeAndreis and Joseph Rosati. They were sent on mission from Rome to answer the appeal of Louis Dubourg, Bishop of Louisiana, who needed priests to establish a seminary in the Diocese of New Orleans.

A group of Catholic settlers near Perryville, Missouri offered Bishop Dubourg 640 acres of land in exchange for the regular services of a priest and a school for their children. Thus in 1818, the Barrens became the site of the seminary. Although Felix DeAndreis was named Superior of St. Mary’s he died in 1820 and never spent time at the Barrens. Joseph Rosati took on the duties of Superior and retained this position even when he was named Bishop of St. Louis.

During the nineteenth century St. Mary’s functioned as a lay college, a Vincentian seminary, diocesan seminary, parish, working farm, and small academy.

Because the motherhouse in Paris did not approve of the intermingling of seminarians and lay students, in 1835 the seminary was suppressed. However, by the 1850s lay students were again admitted to St. Mary’s which indicates the suppression was eventually rescinded. The diocesan seminary was relocated to St. Louis in 1842 and in 1868 the Vincentian seminary moved to Germantown, Pennsylvania.

The division of the American Province into East and West led to the reopening of St. Mary’s as an apostolate school in 1886. Two years later the novitiate and scholastiscate returned. In 1888, St. Mary’s once again became an active seminary and served as the Western Province's house of formation until the mid 1980s.

In 1964, the school of Theology was moved to DeAndreis Seminary in Lemont, Illinois and the Novitiate program moved to Santa Barbara, California while the college formation program remained in Perryville.

During the early part of the twentieth century seminary enrollment fluctuated depending on national social and economic issues. However, in the 1930s and 1950s new seminary buildings, funded by Mrs. Maria Theresa Kulage and Countess Estelle Doheny, were constructed to serve a thriving student population.

Students worked on the major Vincentian goal of service to the poor in several ways. Beginning in 1923 newly ordained priests were sent to China’s Kiangsi Province to serve as missionaries. Three seminarians, Rev. Lester Fallon, C.M., Rev. Joseph Phoenix, C.M., and Rev. Joseph McIntyre, C.M., became interested in evangelization activities that led to the establishment of a new apostolate in 1935, the Vincentian Motor Missions. During World War II, seminarians became active in a project that involved sending necessities of life to confreres in Europe.

In the early 1940s, St. Mary’s of the Barrens sought accreditation by the North Central Accreditation Association but the formal process did not begin until 1957. After considerable hard work, the seminary received accredited status from the NCA in 1967. In 1977, St. Mary’s began the reaccreditation process. Provisional accreditation status was granted with specific recommendations and a required follow-up visit in three years.

In 1975 another division of the province was approved. The Western Province was split to become the Midwest, South, and Western Provinces. This resulted in administrative questions about management of the geographically divided Vincentian formation program. These questions were reviewed by the Governing Board for Common Formation and the Provincial Task Force on Common Formation. Various evaluations and surveys critically analyzed the formation program at St. Mary’s of the Barrens.

The decision to close St. Mary’s in 1984 was based both on practical grounds and on changes in the cultural and ecclesiastical climate. In 1985 the last class graduated from the college program.

Once the difficult decision to close the seminary at St. Mary’s was made there remained the task of charting the future of the Barrens. Task forces were formed to consider the fate of the remaining apostolates and the property of the Barrens.

In 1995, the provincial council accepted the recommendations outlined in the “SMOB Report” which established several committees to study the various ideas proposed. The discussion about the future of St. Mary’s continued until 2000 when a proposal from Southeast Missouri State University to lease the seminary's library classroom building was accepted. In order to free the building for use, the remaining collections had to be dispersed.

In 2001, the DeAndreis-Rosati Memorial Archives, the records of the Midwest Province of the Congregation of the Mission, were transferred to DePaul University in Chicago. The rare books, paper weights, and other art objects donated to the seminary by Countess Estelle Doheny were auctioned at Christie's in December 2001.

In August 2004, the Midwest Province decided to demolish several old seminary buildings for the construction of a new residence for retired Vincentians. The Apostle of Charity Residence opened its doors in 2006 beginning a new chapter for St. Mary’s of the Barrens, the historic seat of the American Vincentians.