American College (Leuven)

About

The American College (Dutch: Amerikaans College) is a former Catholic seminary in Leuven, Belgium. It is now a student residence of the KU Leuven (KUL). Founded in 1857 as the American College of the Immaculate Conception, it was operated by United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to prepare European students to become deacons and priests for service in the United States, and to provide a residence for U.S. clergy studying at the Catholic University of Louvain and its two successor institutions, the KU Leuven (KUL) and the UCLouvain. The seminary closed in June 2011 due to low enrollment and a faculty shortage.

The American College was founded in 1857 by U.S. bishops under the leadership of Bishop Martin J. Spalding of Archdiocese of Louisville and Bishop Peter Paul Lefevere of Archdiocese of Detroit. It was created to train young European men to serve as missionary priests in North America and to give U.S. seminarians the opportunity to study at the Catholic University of Louvain. The college's signature song was a Marian hymn, O Sodales, authored by Gustave Limpens in 1862.

The College grew rapidly in its early years, most notably under the rectorship of John De Neve, its second rector. Over 800 priests trained at the American College served in dioceses and vicariates during the second half of the 19th century across the United States. Some of the priests were eventually appointed as bishops of newly formed dioceses:

Bishop Charles John Seghers, founder of the Alaska mission Bishop Patrick Riordan of the Archdiocese of San Francisco Bishop Alphonse Glorieux of the Diocese of Boise Bishop John Baptist Brondel of the Diocese of Helena

The college continued to train young men for service to the Church in the United States into the twentieth century under the rectorship of Jules De Becker. it remained open during German occupation in First World War. The college staff hid many documents and other valuable items of Leuven, including the statue of the Sedes Sapientiae, The staff converted the college into an emergency hospital and dispensary of food and clothing. At its peak, the college was assisting 1,500 Leuven residents per day. With the declaration of war in 1939, the college closed. It reopened in 1952 under the rectorship of Father Thomas Maloney. The college expanded to accommodate the increased number of U.S. priests and brothers wanting to study at the Catholic University. It also began offering sabbatical opportunities for priests, religious, and lay ecclesial ministers from all nations. In 1965, Leo Jozef Suenens, Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels, invited the college to assume pastoral responsibility for a mooted "American parish" in the environs of Brussels. Consequently, on December 4th of that year, Albion Bulger, vice-rector of the college, was formally appointed pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Uccle. This gave anglophone Catholics access to Mass in their own vernacular, a phenomenon then growing significantly in prominence as a consequence of the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The parish quickly emerged as a center for multinational anglophone Catholic life in the Brussels area. In 1968, a major ethnic dispute known as the Leuven crisis erupted in Belgium between the Flemish-speaking population and the Walloons (French speakers). To resolve the dispute, the Catholic University of Louvain was split into KU Leuven in Leuven and the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain) in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. The American College, remaining in Leuven, maintained ties with both new institutions.

The American College was sponsored and overseen by U.S. Catholic bishops through the USCCB. The other U.S.-sponsored college in Europe was the Pontifical North American College in Rome.

Adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA). Photography via Wikimedia Commons.