Diocese to close seminary that is focus of abuse cases

A Roman Catholic seminary at the center of sexual abuse allegations involving former Bishop Anthony O'Connell will shut down next month because of financial difficulties blamed partly on the scandal.

St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in Hannibal will close May 20, at the end of the 2001-2002 school year. Jefferson City Bishop John Gaydos on Friday blamed "insurmountable" financial difficulties and low enrollment. The seminary is operated by the diocese.

Gaydos said allegations of sexual abuse against O'Connell, 63, who served for nearly two decades as rector at St. Thomas, played a role, too.

"With these allegations, it's impossible in the short term to do any recruiting for the place," Gaydos said, emphasizing that there are no allegations against current staff.

Just 27 students are enrolled this school year at St. Thomas, which Gaydos said is one of three seminary boarding schools in the country for teen-age boys. The others are in Wisconsin and Connecticut.

Struggling for years

Until last month, the hilltop seminary overlooking the Mississippi River town where Mark Twain grew up quietly went about its business virtually unnoticed.

Since then, the seminary has been the focal point of sexual abuse allegations involving O'Connell, who left Hannibal in 1988 and went on to serve as a bishop in Knoxville, Tenn., and Palm Beach, Fla.

O'Connell resigned as Palm Beach bishop March 8, the same day the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that he had sexually abused seminarian Chris Dixon, now 40, in the 1970s. In resigning, O'Connell admitted wrongdoing.

Since then, three lawsuits have been filed by other men alleging abuse by O'Connell at the seminary from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. The most recent suit, filed Thursday, named the Vatican among defendants and accused the Catholic Church of racketeering in a conspiracy to keep abuse allegations secret.

The seminary was struggling even before the abuse allegations. When Gaydos arrived in 1997, the seminary had 33 students. Gaydos set a goal of 50. "Unfortunately, it's been going the opposite way," he said.

The low enrollment has forced parishes within the diocese to help subsidize the school -- $360,000 this school year alone. Gaydos said that with deteriorating buildings and other needs, that number would have grown.

The diocese will help relocate students. Twenty-one people will lose their jobs, including nine faculty members, six of them priests.

St. Thomas was founded in 1957 on the grounds of an old orphanage. The campus now includes a main building with an attached chapel, a gymnasium and a ballfield. Gaydos said a decision on what to do with the property has not been made.

At its peak in 1963, 94 students attended St. Thomas, most of them preparing for careers as priests. Of the 115 current priests in the Jefferson City Diocese, about half attended St. Thomas, Gaydos said.

Among them is the Rev. Mike Quinn, pastor of Holy Family Church in Hannibal, who graduated from St. Thomas in 1962. He and his former classmates plan to gather over Memorial Day weekend for a 40th reunion.

"It was a wonderful environment, a wonderful safe haven, a place where we were few in number but the atmosphere was really close," Quinn said. "This stuff about sex abuse, we never heard of that."

'Society has changed'

In recent years, few St. Thomas graduates have chosen to enter the priesthood. Only one graduate in the last two years has gone on to a college seminary, and one this year plans to do so, Gaydos said.

"Society has changed," Gaydos said. "It takes longer for everybody to discern what they're going to do with their lives, their vocations."