Diocese of Covington - Messenger at 402 E. 21st Street, Covington, KY 41015 US - A little history

St. Vincent Seminary is a busy place, at once a monastery, a seminary, a Catholic college serving lay students mostly, and a parish. (It also hosts, in the summer, the training camp for the Pittsburgh Steelers.) The Benedictine monastery houses about 100 monks (another 60 belong to the monastery but are currently serving other assignment). The seminary is home to 75 men preparing for the priesthood. The Catholic college enrolls about 1500 students. The focal point — both spiritual and geographical — is the basilica, which serves the St. Vincent community as well as parishioners from nearby Latrobe.

This Benedictine monastery traces its modern history to the mid-19th century, but its roots are deep in the Europe and the Catholic Church of 1400 years ago.

Father Boniface Wimmer, a priest of the Diocese of Regensburg in Bavaria who became a Benedictine monk, gained permission to come to America to serve the spiritual and educational needs of what he understood to be large numbers of German-speaking immigrants. Accepting an invitation from the Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, he and 18 postulants settled in 1846 at the parish of St. Vincent de Paul near Latrobe and established a monastic community. The seminary he founded was officially established in 1855 by Pope Pius IX. Soon the seminary’s rigorous academic curriculum began attracting men who wanted a college education but did seek to be a priest or a monk, so Father Wimmer founded St. Vincent College on the monastery grounds. Since the first priest was ordained in 1847, more than 2500 men have studied at St. Vincent Seminary and become priests, and 100 more have been ordained as permanent deacons. Twenty-eight bishops, archbishops and cardinals are among its alumni. St. Vincent is the fourth-oldest seminary in the U.S.

(Back)