This is sad -- not unexpected, but still sad.

For more than a century, Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary has prepared teenage boys for the priesthood, largely unchanged as the city transformed around it from gritty industrial center to modern metropolis.

But another kind of change finally caught up with Quigley.

The 102-year-old seminary -- a Gothic-style building in a tony Chicago shopping district -- closed Friday because of a shrinking student body that has seen just one graduate ordained in the last 17 years.

It's the latest reminder that Roman Catholic preparatory seminaries have all but vanished in the United States, and highlights the church's struggle to find men willing to dedicate themselves to the priesthood.

I've got a couple of comments to make on this one.

First, I question the statistic at the end of the article. There was, for a time, Quigley South, before it was merged back into what was then known as Quigley North -- and when I studied for the priesthood in the early 1990s I had a number of friends and classmates who were graduates of that school and who were ordained during the early-to-mid-1990s. The single graduate statistic therefore ignores a large number of priests who were a part of the Quigley Preparatory Seminary system.

Second, I owe a great debt to Quigley. I studied for the priesthood at St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein for several years, though I left before ordination. For those who don't know, that is the major seminary run by the Archdiocese of Chicago. Many of my professors and my spiritual director were Quigley products, and for them I am thankful for the contribution of that seminary to my life and education.

Lastly, I think about how close i came to attending Quigley myself. As a ninth grader, I was taken on a tour of the two Quigleys by Father Gene Keusel during his tenure as archdiocesan vocation director. I found myself impressed by the school and the program -- but would have either needed to commute over an hour each way or live in a dormitory setting. At 15, I was not particularly excited in either option and my parents quickly rejected both options when we talked about them, so I stayed at the high school I was already attending (right across the street from the major seminary, as it happened). I've often wondered, though, how a different decision would have changed my life.

But I do agree with the assessments in the article. The closure of Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary does mark the end of an era -- both because of a change in when men join the priesthood and a change in our society. It is, however, a change for the better in my book, one in which men approach the priesthood with experience of the world rather than having been set apart for a dozen years before their ordination.

And to any Quigley alums reading this, may I offer you a hearty Ad Multos Annos!

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