St. John's News
August 31, 2007

Redemptorist Seminarians Make St. John’s University Their Full-Time Place of Undergraduate Study

Beginning this semester, the Redemptorists, a worldwide Roman Catholic order of priests and Brothers, will send all of their American undergraduate seminarians to St. John’s to pursue their bachelor’s degrees in philosophy.

Previously, the order had split its undergraduates between St. John’s University and St. Louis University, but due to a steady decrease in seminary enrollment, the order has decided to consolidate its formation houses and begin a full operation in New York.

The Redemptorists began sending undergraduates to St. John’s two decades ago after engaging in a close survey of the leading Catholic universities along the east coast, including notable institutions such as Georgetown and Villanova. Ultimately, the order selected St. John’s, largely because of the University’s Vincentian tradition of educating first-generation students from the working and middle classes — a group of people Redemptorist priests and Brothers are called to serve.

“Apart from offering a solid education, particularly in philosophy and theology, St. John’s is not an elitist school, and we wanted our seminarians to be trained amongst the people they’ll be working with later on,” says Rev. Paul Brown, C.S.S.R., director of the Redemptorist’s formation house in Whitestone, Queens.

Ministering to the poor also serves as the core of the Vincentian charism, which also weighed heavily in the Redemptorists’ decision to send students to St. John’s. The missions of both orders are so similar, in fact, that Father Brown jokes: “Sometimes I close my eyes during a Vincentian Mass, and when I hear the priest talking about St. Vincent de Paul, I feel like he’s talking about our founder [St. Alphonsus Liguori, C.Ss.R.].”

The similarity in charisms “adds a sense of unity on campus,” says senior seminarian Nicholas Andruzzi, 23, from Concord, NH. “A lot of us [Redemptorists] are friends with the Vincentian seminarians. They’ll come to our house parties, and we’ll go to theirs.”

In order to be ordained, American bishops require all American seminarians to earn 36 undergraduate credits in philosophy and 12 credits in theology before pursuing a master’s degree in theology within a major seminary.

To support Redemptorist vocations with prayers and gifts, go to Co-Redemptorist Association.