Islamic school

The seminary was a ballet school before it was a Muslim school, who, if nothing else, were diseminating error on the person of Christ, who is believed to be a minor prophet by Muslims. Who retained ownership and what restraints the Diocesan authorities attempted to put on future ownership is unclear. What is clear is that if a traditional Catholic group, nay even a slightly conservative Catholic group had tried to purchase this property, they would not have even got a foot in the door.

I will return to the subject of the virtues of Junior Seminary (of which, St Joseph's was an example) at a later date, not least since the alternative presented by the contemporary Church is permanent deacons, however worthy, nearing their retirement age or older, attempting and failing to do the job of priests.

One can only cry for the vocations that have been missed by the closure of these institutions across the Catholic world. There is a famours book in German called "The Wounding" about the baleful life of Catholic seminaries in the post-Vatican II world in the late 1960s and early 1970s and about the psychological damage that they did both to future priests and to those who could no longer stand the pressure and ran away.

St Joseph's Seminary was a casualty not just of the post-conciliar world, but of the plans that were being made by modernisers well before the Council, not least in liturgical matters as has been illuminated here and countless other blogs.

More information on St Michael's Orphanage here and the chapel here. Pugin designed the whole building complex.

Mark Cross in old pictures.

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