Sparked by the “Crisis of 1955” and made possible through the efforts of a “Committee of 100,” it was called the “highlight of the (first) 25 years” of the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw.

The St. Paul Seminary of Saginaw was a six-year, 192-student-capacity, secondary and junior college boarding school built in Saginaw Township to educate young men as possible candidates for the priesthood.

It was built out of neccessity in the midst of a vocations boom that was happening along with population and economic growth across Michigan following World War II.

A “crisis” was reached for the Diocese of Saginaw in 1955, when Bishop Stephen S. Woznicki was informed by his counterparts in the Archdiocese of Detroit and the Diocese of Grand Rapids that their minor seminaries would only be able accept a limited number of Saginaw seminarians – from two to 10 total per year.

Following that news, the bishop quickly formed a panel of clergy and lay people to study the feasability of a Saginaw seminary. The group’s 36-page report published nearly six months later found the project “both necessary and possible,” paving the way for the philanthrophic campaign of the “Committee of 100.”

In December 1956, a 53-acre seminary site was purchased in the farmland at the corner of Weiss Street and Wieneke Road. The seminary was formally incoporated on Jan. 25, 1957, the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

By the spring of 1957, a pledge base of $3.6 million was reached, more than a million dollars above its goal. The anticipated extra money, however, was wiped out by an economic recession in 1958, causing the addition of a permanent chapel on the seminary campus to be postponed. That chapel was never built.

Ground was broken on the seminary on June 29, 1958 and the building’s cornerstone was laid nearly one year later on June 28, 1959. The first class of 82 seminarians arrived in the fall of 1960 and the offi cial dedication Mass took place in the school’s gym on June 29, 1961 with Detroit Archbishop John F. Dearden presiding.

In 1970, declining enrollment of diocesan seminarians led Bishop Woznicki’s successor, Bishop Francis F. Reh, to close the seminary. The building then became SS. Peter & Paul High School, attached to the nearby SS. Peter & Paul Parish of Saginaw.

In 1984, the city’s three high schools – St. Mary Cathedral, St. Stephen and SS. Peter & Paul – merged to become Nouvel Catholic Central High School and claimed the former St. Paul Seminary campus as home.

The school is named for Father Henri Nouvel, a 17th Century French Jesuit missionary who is locally recognized as the first priest to have clebrated Mass in the Saginaw River Valley. A monument in his honor stands on Saginaw’s Ojibway Island.

Today, the former seminary campus also houses the main Diocesan Center offices. The Center for Ministry, which was built in 1998, now stands off the parcel of property once set aside for the postponed St. Paul Seminary Chapel.

The following text is from a March 21, 1961 letter by Bishop Woznicki regarding the seminary’s formal dedication Mass:

Venerable Brethern of the Clergy and Dearly Beloved of the Laity:

On the 29th of June, 1961, the Feast of SS. Peter and Paul, Apostles, We, the Bishop of the Saginaw Diocese, together with the Clergy and Laity, will offer to God a singular act of homage through the formal dedication of the St. Paul Seminary. What could be more pleasing to Him than the offering of a suitable facility to educate candidates to His Divine Son’s Holy Priesthood? All the more so, because it represents the sum total of a great many sacrifices of Our Clergy and people, made in the past four years.

This act of homage and fi lial submission will be extended, We hope, for many years to come. It will be represented in every class that is graduated from this institution. It will continue to bring a shower of graces upon all those who lent a hand to the act that turned a fond but “unrealistic” dream into a pleasing reality. In it today we behold the ‘impossible’ made possible by a united effort of prayers and financial sacrifi ces, coupled with God’s abundent assistance.

We know that not all of you can attend these impressive ceremonies in person. But you can be with Us in spirit. Let us make this whole week a period of special prayer and thanksgiving for what God helped us accomplish. May the Holy Apostles, whose feast day we commemorate in a few days, protect and prosper this nursery for vocations that it may produce giants for the Master’s Church and priesthood.

God bless you and keep you