Quigley Closing

[chicago]

chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-060919quigley,1,24451.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true

For almost a century, the Gothic building on the corner of Rush and Chestnut Streets has been both an emblem of the promising future of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago and a relic of its rich history.

By educating young men who would later become priests and bishops, law enforcers and political leaders, Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary helped shape a city and a church.

But in the end, the same shrinking enrollment and escalating costs that have plagued other schools in the archdiocese brought down the historic high school seminary.

On Tuesday, the archdiocese announced Quigley would close its doors in June 2007, marking the end of an era and signaling a significant shift in how the American church is drawing young men to the priesthood.

Only five high school seminaries in the nation will remain, their futures also uncertain as fewer men pursue a priestly calling and those who do take a more circuitous path.

“This doesn’t mean vocations are dying,” said Auxiliary Bishop Francis Kane, a 1961 Quigley graduate. “What it means is that the Lord is asking us to call young men in a different way and at different time in their life.”

 

[chicago]

quigley.org

windows.org

 

[Island_Oak]

I’m crushed by this news! The Quigley building has one of the most stunning chapels I’ve ever seen. It breaks my heart to think this building is destined to become condos or retail space.

 

[chicago]

I’m crushed by this news! The Quigley building has one of the most stunning chapels I’ve ever seen. It breaks my heart to think this building is destined to become condos or retail space.

It’s going to be converted to use for the chancery office. So the building and chapel, itself, will remain. They’re planning to sell off the old chancery office property (a couple of blocks away) and that is what will become condos or whatever. I imagaine the Archdiocese is set to make a HUGH windfall from the sale. (Which, IMO, is what the closing of Quigley is REALLY about). I wonder how much of that money will see it’s way into development of young vocations.

 

[seamusebrius]

I’m crushed by the closing of my alma mater, but the chapel will presumably be saved as the building is becoming the home of the Archdiocese of Chicago Pastoral Center.

 

[Andy_K]

I still can’t believe I will be part of the last graduating class of Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary!

I wanted that school to last forever

 

[chicago]

** Quigley Seminary to close in June ’07**

By Michelle Martin
Staff writer

In the days after students and staff at Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary found out that this year will be the school’s last, the business of teaching and learning, praying and serving, went on.

But it was not business as usual at the high school seminary, one of only a handful left in the United States.

The students—all Catholic boys from the Archdiocese of Chicago who professed themselves open to the idea of considering whether they have a vocation to the priesthood—talked amongst themselves, with teachers and alumni, and tried to understand why the school will close.

“It has such a long history,” said senior Bob Cummings of Chicago. “It’s so much different from any other Catholic school.”

The school has a sense of family,released to media, archdiocesan officials said, “The changing patterns of vocation discernment has had a great impact in the ability to maintain a high school seminary program. For many years Quigley has been one of the few high school seminary preparatory schools in the United States. Declining numbers of students, along with growing costs per student associated with operating Quigley, have also led to this difficult but necessary decision.”

read the rest at:

catholicnewworld.com/cnw/issue/1_100106.html