Religion: Yankee Seminarians

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The casual tourist in Rome last weekend might have come away convinced that English had been made the official language of the Vatican. Even Pope John XXIII, coached for the past year, prepared to use the newest in his vocabulary of nine languages. And to Rome a mass pilgrimage of American Catholic clergy brought three cardinals (New York's Spellman, Boston's Gushing, Philadelphia's O'Hara), five dozen archbishops and bishops, and scores of other U.S. churchmen for a typically American celebration: Homecoming Day. Most were old grads returning to their alma mater—Rome's North American Pontifical College, a stern seminary for U.S. priests that this week celebrated its 100th anniversary.

Standards at North American College are high: 30% of the class usually fails to finish. As a training ground for U.S. Catholic hierarchy, the college's record is spectacular; of 1,900 priests graduated in the past 100 years, 115 have become bishops, one became a Trappist abbot, and six (sole survivor: New York's Spellman) later wore the cardinal's red hat.

Cheers for Pius. Plans for the North American College were begun by Archbishop Gaetano Bedini, who visited the U.S. in 1853-54 as special papal legate. Undeterred by an assassination plot hatched by anti-Catholic fanatics during his U.S. tour, Bedini asked the Holy See to furnish land and buildings, U.S. bishops to provide funds. Quartered in a converted convent on Via dell'Umilta (Humility Street), the school opened hopefully in 1859 with twelve students from seven states (three of the twelve later became archbishops). Pope Pius IX came himself for Mass, Communion and breakfast (including ice cream and punch); delighted students gave three rousing cheers for George Washington and three more for the Pope.

The seminary's first students lived in cold stone cells with no heat, slept on corn-husk mattresses, fought malaria and fleas. But life was brightened by their robes (all of Rome's foreign seminarians wear robes with national markings). The Irish-Americans who helped found the college considered green, but the final choice was black cassocks with red buttons and sash and blue facings which, together with a white Roman collar, added up to the U.S. colors (the first class even had a brass star on each shoe strap).

Message from John. After weathering the Civil War (when enrollment was down to five), the North American College gradually became part of the Roman scene. In 1928 North American College students helped ease expanding Rome's shortage of priests by assisting at Masses and blessing Roman buildings on Holy Saturday. Noted one exhausted student priest in his diary: "Blessed six palazzi. Everything possible. Butcher shop. Wine cellar. Sleeping baby. Woman 91 years old. Water—when I ran out of it."