Seminary Closing--More

A well-written report from the Milwaukee JSOnline: (excerpts)

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is closing the academic training portion of the St. Francis de Sales Seminary due to fiscal problems and questions of how best to provide training for priests, deacons and lay people.

The seminary currently has a $5.3 million annual operating budget and is running a deficit, Hohl said. The deficit was $1.6 million in 2004-'05; $2 million in 2005-'06 and is projected to be $2.2 million next year.

Pre-theology and first-year theology students at St. Francis would begin taking classroom work at the Sacred Heart School of Theology, in Franklin, a school run by the U.S. Province of the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart, beginning this fall, said Father Thomas Cassidy, Sacred Heart's rector. He said other seminarians would transfer in the fall of 2007.

The priests [ordination-track students?] would continue living in 150-year-old Henni Hall on the St. Francis campus and receive their human, pastoral and spiritual development training there. Cassidy said plans for men training for the permanent diaconate program have not been finalized.

Here's the obligatory dissenting quote:

Father Carl Diederichs, pastor of All Saints Catholic Church in Milwaukee, who studied at St. Francis, said he hoped women would continue to study alongside seminarians.

"To be in an all-male, all-seminarian milieu, they would lose something," Diederichs said of candidates for the priesthood. "I also have concerns for the lay ministry program."

Diederichs' parish is hosting the gay-marriage crowd. He's a close friend of the Cathedral's rector, Fr. Last.

Rome has made it crystal clear that wimmin should NOT be included in Theologate classes. Diederichs seems to know better.