A Roman Catholic seminary troubled by allegations that some pastors sexually abused students there years ago could close if the revelations mean drops in enrollment and recruiting, the Jefferson City Diocese said Wednesday.

"The future of the seminary is a question that's definitely on the table," diocese spokesman Mark Saucier said. The fate of Hannibal's St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary should be known within a month or so, he said.

A spokeswoman for the seminary, believed to be one of three seminary boarding schools for teen-age boys, referred all calls to the diocese.

A Missouri priest has called for the 27-student seminary's closure since the Rev. Anthony J. O'Connell resigned March 8 as bishop of the Diocese of Palm Beach, Fla., after admitting he molested former St. Thomas student Christopher Dixon in 1977 while O'Connell was the seminary's rector.

The Jefferson City Diocese paid Dixon $125,000 in a 1996 settlement, under which he promised not to pursue further claims against the diocese, O'Connell and two other priests. The diocese did not admit any wrongdoing.

The other priests were the Rev. Manus Daly, who allegedly abused Dixon at the seminary, and the Rev. John Fischer, who allegedly began abusing Dixon at a Hannibal Catholic school when he was 11. Daly was removed this month from a Marceline, Mo., church, and Fischer was removed from the priesthood in 1993 after allegations involving other children.

Lawsuits filed

O'Connell faces two civil lawsuits also accusing him of wrongdoing with underage seminarians while he was rector at St. Thomas, in the Mississippi River town about 100 miles north of St. Louis.

On March 18, a 47-year-old Minnesotan sued O'Connell, claiming he was abused starting in the late 1960s. Last Friday, a lawsuit by an unnamed 34-year-old former student at the seminary alleges that Catholic bishops kept secret files about priests accused of sexual misconduct, and that the church goes out of its way to keep the allegations from police, prosecutors and the public.

An attorney for one of the men suing O'Connell said that additionally, five others have come forward to say they also were abused by St. Thomas priests, dating to 1967.

On the day O'Connell resigned in Florida, the Rev. James Offutt of Centralia's Holy Spirit Catholic Church by e-mail encouraged people in the diocese to request that Bishop John Gaydos close St. Thomas.

Offutt did not return a phone message Wednesday.

Saucier said he was uncertain how many pastors may share Offutt's view. He said none of the seminary's students have quit since O'Connell's resignation and the lawsuits.

Saucier said the diocese wants to decide the seminary's fate swiftly, given the approach of the school year's end and the need to give parents of students and recruits enough time to make alternate arrangements, if the seminary is ordered closed.

Two other seminary boarding schools are in Connecticut and Wisconsin, Saucier said.

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On the Net:

St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, http://members.sockets.net/(tilde)stasem

Diocese of Jefferson City, http://www.diojeffcity.org