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The first mass at the new site of Pontifical Josephinum College, off Route 23 just north of Worthington, was held 90 years ago this week in 1931.
The College of Liberal Arts and the Roman Catholic Seminary is the only pontifical seminary in the world outside of Italy, “pontifical” meaning that it is under the direct governance of the Holy See, or the Vatican.
But why is it located in Ohio, and why so far north of Columbus? Let’s start with the beginning.
The college was founded by Monsignor John Joseph Jessing, a German veteran who came to the United States and received his priestly training in Cincinnati. He first opened the Saint Joseph Orphanage in Pomeroy and then moved it to Columbus at 18th and Main Streets.
Some of the orphans wanted to study for the priesthood, so he chose to open a seminary there in 1888, when 23 students registered for several years of primary, secondary, collegiate and seminarian training at the “Collegium Josephinumâ€.
Pope Leo XIII bestowed the institution the honor of papal status, and in 1899 the first class of six of the original 23 seminarians were ordained to the priesthood, just five months before Jessing’s death.
A few decades later, its leaders began to seek a rural plot far from city life. They also sought to free themselves from cramped neighborhoods due to increased enrollment and lack of affordable land for expansion.
In 1924, William Duffy, a generous farmer, sold 120 acres of his land to the Josephinum for $ 1 plus the cost of property taxes. The site was 14 miles from the original seminary and offered wide open spaces, woodlands, ravines and streams.
The academic structure then evolved into four years of high school, four years of college and four years of theology / seminary. The school closed in 1967.
Today, there are two divisions: an Undergraduate Liberal Arts College and a Graduate School of Theology. There are 43 students and 3,900 living alumni. Josephinum’s Tour Day, a free annual event, is then scheduled for April 30, 2022; register at [email protected].
Collaborator Linda Deitch was a dispatch librarian for 25 years.
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