BELMONT — Last Sunday morning under Carolina blue skies, Bishop Peter Jugis blessed the land that will become the permanent home for St. Joseph College Seminary.
The 86-acre wooded site sits along Perfection Avenue in Belmont, just north of Belmont Abbey College. Bishop Jugis was transported to the undeveloped site Oct. 22 on a large green four-wheeler – cheered on by the young men enrolled in the college seminary.
They gathered near what will be the main entrance to the college seminary, and the bishop sprinkled the ground with holy water and blessed it. Then he buried a small crucifix and several holy medals near the future site of the seminary chapel, including a St. Michael medal, Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart medals and a Miraculous Medal.
In his remarks during the blessing rite, Bishop Peter Jugis spoke to the college seminarians about the need to foster devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, patroness of the diocese, and the importance of praying the rosary and asking for her intercession in their lives.
“It is quite providential that we gather during the month of the rosary, October, for this significant milestone in the history of this great institution which is St. Joseph’s Seminary, to be asking God’s blessing upon this land and the prayers, the intercession and the blessing of our Blessed Mother, and (also for) the prayers of the great St. Joseph,” he said.
The day was also significant as the feast of St. John Paul II, who had a particularly close devotion to Mary. The late pope ordained Bishop Jugis to the priesthood in 1983 in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and in 2003 appointed him as the fourth bishop of Charlotte.
After he concluded the blessing rite, Bishop Jugis commented on the significance of the occasion, recalling the day in March 2016 when he announced the establishment of the college seminary.
“We’ve had a long process of getting to this day,” he said. “Several years, of course, of discerning the Lord’s will for our diocese and discerning the call of many young men for the priesthood. It is a great beginning.”
This site for the college seminary – “our own building and our own land,” he noted – will enable the diocese to continue responding to the Lord’s work in fostering local religious vocations.
That sense of ownership was also instilled in the young men by Father Matthew Kauth, rector of the college seminary.
The night before the bishop’s visit, the young men cleared an area near the future entrance, Father Kauth said. They erected a cross made from trees they cut down, then camped out overnight on the site.
“I wanted to be able, in some sense, to claim it as our own,” Father Kauth noted. “This is something that is going to hopefully be in the diocese for perpetuity. I want them to feel a sense of their claiming the land, claiming it as their home. Not just for seminarians, but for priests – for the priests to be able to come here. Also, for it to be a place of spiritual grace for the whole diocese to pray for the priesthood.”
“We are going to come out here over the course of the next several months and begin to clear out the land,” he continued. “We wanted it blessed first by the bishop. We will be bringing the seminarians out here with some frequency to pray the rosary and sanctify the land that is here. We’re going to make our own pathways and things.”
The diocese closed on the $1.4 million purchase of the 86-acre site, located approximately two miles from Belmont Abbey College, on Sept. 11.
Funds used to purchase the land came from donations earmarked for a permanent home for the college seminary.
St. Joseph College Seminary was founded in 2016 for undergraduate men discerning a possible religious vocation, before considering the step of enrolling in a major seminary for specific formation to the priesthood. Students work toward a bachelor’s degree in philosophy at Belmont Abbey College while experiencing a Benedictine-style communal life on their path of discernment.
Only in its second year, the college seminary’s enrollment is 16 men. Students are being temporarily housed in two separate residences adjacent to the campus of St. Ann Church in Charlotte – the former Poor Clares convent behind St. Ann School and a house on Hillside Avenue.
Neither building has room for more students.
Construction plans call for the college seminary to be developed in two phases, but even those plans are being modified as diocesan officials strive to accommodate the unexpectedly high enrollment.
Originally, the plan was to house up to 20 students in a 17,000-square-foot building, and future expansion planned to double that to 40 students.
Because enrollment is already at 16 men, diocesan planners have accelerated those plans, now moving forward with a 27,000-square-foot building that can house up to 40 men at the start.
Besides 40 dormitory-style rooms, the main building will include academic spaces, administrative offices, four faculty offices, a guest suite, a gathering space and refectory, chapel and study space.
The projected cost to complete the first phase is approximately $15 million, higher than the original project estimate of $7.5 million because the plans were enlarged to accommodate twice as many men, the original plans did not anticipate the need to buy land, and because of price increases in the construction market.
Fundraising for the college seminary totals $4.5 million so far.
Fundraising will continue outside the diocese this year, with fundraising work in the diocese expected to begin in the fall of 2018.
— SueAnn Howell, Senior reporter
