Orchard Lake Regents Vote to Shutter Michigan’s Oldest Seminary
The Roman Catholic Polish Seminary, founded in Detroit in 1885, is slated to close in spring 2022
Orchard Lake Schools Regents Thursday announced plans to close the 137-year-old Polish Seminary while retaining high school and other operations.
“My heart is broken,” a Seminary official said Thursday.
Regents countered that the decision was inevitable.
“It was a great institution that did so much for the faith and for Polonia and for its mission for a very long time,” Regents chairman Stephen Gross told the Detroit Free Press. “Its mission has been fulfilled.”
Gross blamed “numbers,” saying, “in the past 15 years, 90 percent of our seminarians were people transferring out of seminaries in Poland. It became very apparent to us that we would have literally no new seminarians.”
Orchard Lake’s seminary has helped address a national priest shortage by bringing students from Poland and other nations to its seminary, forming priests for U.S. dioceses across the nation. The U.S. dioceses, the Orchard Lake fund-raising operation, and a large endowment support the Orchard Lake seminary.
