This article originally appeared in the fall 2024 issue of the Western Province’s quarterly newsletter, The Vincentian. This particular piece is part of a series by Fr. Ray Van Dorpe on the history of the Congregation of the Mission, commemorating its 400th anniversary.
Very early in the first years of preaching parish missions in France, Father Vincent de Paul became aware that the clergy of France had insufficient education and spiritual formation for the work which the Church had entrusted to them. Vincent often found priests who had received little or no instruction on how to celebrate Mass or administer the sacraments. Many were also leading lives hardly in keeping with their vocation. Some bishops had opened seminaries, as mandated by the Council of Trent, but these were few and mostly for the urban dioceses. Rural places, where Vincent and his confreres were preaching missions, had few good priests. Vincent wanted to change that.
After discussing the matter with some bishops, Vincent came up with the idea of organizing retreats of two or three weeks for those about to be ordained. These men were given a crash course in the basics of sacramental ministry, pastoral care, and priestly spirituality. Later, to support priests in their continuing formation and education, Vincent started the “Tuesday Conferences,” weekly meetings at which Vincent and other confreres would lead conversations on priestly life and ministry. In 1641 the first seminary staffed by the Congregation of the Mission opened in eastern France. By the end of the 17th century, Vincentians staffed 34 seminaries in France and Poland. In the next century this ministry grew even more.
Part of the growth of these seminaries included secondary schools that recruited younger men and gave them a basic education in preparation for further priestly studies. In some places these secondary schools took in lay students, because education was a way to escape grinding poverty.
In America and a few other countries, major seminaries began taking in lay students for college-level studies to bring in extra income to the institution and form them into solid Christian laymen. St. Mary’s of the Barrens in Perryville, Missouri, is one example. A number of these were started in the United States, three of which remain to this day. The oldest is Niagara University, which opened in 1856 as Our Lady of the Angels Seminary, in Niagara Falls, New York. The College of Saint John the Baptist in Brooklyn, New York, opened in 1870 as a lay college only and later moved to Queens, where it is known today as St. John’s University. In 1898 St. Vincent’s College opened in Chicago and in 1907 was chartered as DePaul University (top left and middle right).
Today, most confreres would agree that making higher education accessible for all, especially the poor, is a worthy goal. Vincentian colleges and universities have formed men and women who graduate with a special concern for the poor. Their influence in business, government, education, and the arts has changed countless lives.