Diocese of Covington - Messenger at 402 E. 21st Street, Covington, KY 41015 US - Intellectual Formation

Seminarian Bill Appel practicing piano in the basilica's crypt

Seminarians’ academic, intellectual development is the special charge of Dr. Michel Therrien, interim academic dean. He is one of two laypeople on the 17-member regular faculty. They are assisted by another dozen or so adjunct professors and St. Vincent College teachers.

The seminary program is blessed, he said, by the Benedictines’ charism of hospitality, adding a very personal dimension to the seminarians’ formation. “The faculty, the staff, know the students very well and vice versa … this is really a personable place where a lot of people, ideas, examples commingle that might not at other seminaries.”

The seminary formation program helps develop a mature understanding of what the faith is and to help them become the kind of persons that will make Christ very accessible to other people,” Dr. Therrien said. “That’s a delicate juggling act, because you’ve got to give them the solid theological foundation, but they then have to be able to transpose that into the cultural mediums of most people out there in the pew. They have to work on communications skills, learn to be well-mannered … all these things that young men, in particular, are not always so well formed in by the culture.”

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