Diocese of Covington - Messenger at 402 E. 21st Street, Covington, KY 41015 US - Prayer … Stability ... Community ... Hospitality ... Peace ... Reverence ...

Deacon Lawrence Schaper at the altar with Father Lester Knoll, CF

Even a brief experience of St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, convinces the visitor that these qualities are the essence of the people and the place.

The Messenger editorial staff recently spent about 48 hours visiting the seminary and the six seminarians  from the Diocese of Covington there preparing to be priests for the diocese. Here are our impressions, based on what we saw and heard …

The six seminarians are William Appel, Deacon Matthew Cushing, John Michniuk, Dean Larry Schaeper, Harry Settle, and Ryan Stenger. Deacon Cushing and Deacon Schaeper are scheduled to be ordained on May 30, 2009, along with Deacon Josh Lange and Deacon Robert Rottgers from St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois.

The six seminarians from the Diocese of Covington preparing for their lives of ministry at St. Vincent are serious yet light-hearted, relishing the public and private prayer times and thoroughly enjoying the social interplay among themselves and the other 75 or so seminarians. Even though each is at a different stage of their preparation, is a different age and comes with widely varied life experiences (a recent high school graduate, a former U.S. Marine sharing his experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, for example) each is aware of the seriousness and significance of what he is choosing to do. Each is molding himself, and allowing himself to be molded, into a priest who will serve the Diocese of Covington for decades into the future.

The Catholic Church has established standards and criteria for preparing men for ordained ministry, expressed in the Code of Canon Law and the the U.S. Bishops’ “Program of Priestly Formation” (2006). The program is, in turn, inspired by Pope John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation “Pastores dabo vobis” (“I will give you shepherds”) (1992). St. Vincent and other seminaries foster the formation of future priests by attending to what are known as the “four pillars” of preparation—the spiritual, intellectual, pastoral and human. For more about the Messenger visit click on the links below.

Spiritual Formation  

Intellectual Formation

Pastoral Formation

Human Formation

A From the Benedictines

A Brief History of St. Vincent Seminary

(Back)