page_title: Seminaries of Saint Paul
section_title: St. Mary's Chapel
hierarchical_section_title: Seminaries of Saint Paul / The Saint Paul Seminary / Campus / St. Mary's Chapel
caption_attribution_description: English: Interior of St. Mary's Chapel at the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity
context_page_description: The Seminaries of Saint Paul is the seminary system of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis. The Seminaries are made up of an undergraduate division – The Saint John Vianney College Seminary – and a graduate division – The Saint Paul Seminary. The Saint Paul Seminary also has graduate theology programs for non-seminarians in affiliation with the University of St. Thomas, called the Saint Paul Seminary School of Divinity. Together they have over 200 seminarians studying for the Catholic priesthood, and the Saint Paul Seminary has over lay 600 students in graduate and non-degree seeking programs.
  Both seminaries are located on the campus of the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
  While their corporate boards have long been identical, the two seminaries were combined under a single brand in 2018.
context_section_description: The center of Ireland's vision for The Saint Paul Seminary, was the chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  The cornerstone of the chapel was laid during a Pontifical Mass on July 2, 1901, the fiftieth anniversary of Bishop Joseph Crétin's arrival in the new diocese.  Though envisioned in 1891, the chapel was only completed by architect Clarence H. Johnston, Sr., who completed the last of Hill's ambitious building project, in an Italian Romanesque style.  St. Mary's chapel was officially consecrated by Bishop Cotter on May 24, 1905 in another Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Bishop McGolrick.  Under Archbishop Austin Dowling, the interior of the chapel was finished in the 1920s.
  Bishop Fulton Sheen, in his autobiography A Treasure in Clay, talks about how his love for a daily Holy Hour was started at St. Mary's Chapel.
  The chapel was renovated in 1988, as part of the construction of the new seminary building, with a new design by Frank Kacmarcik which included reversing the interior of the chapel, removing the statues from the side altars, and whitewashing the interior decoration. Archbishop Roach intervened before the stained glass windows and the mural in the apse (now the entrance) could be destroyed, though too late to preserve the original high altar.  The dramatic simplification of the chapel was done in order to capture the original look of the chapel's starkness before Archbishop Dowling had the interior finished.
  Presently, the interior of the chapel has begun to be redecorated when the original Stations of the Cross were restored to the chapel, a statue of Our Lady of Confidence (Madonna della Fiducia) was installed and dedicated in a side-altar niche, and a relic of Saint Mother Theresa of Calcutta was placed for veneration in the chapel.  All of the new additions were done under the direction of rector Aloysius Callaghan.
caption: Chapel interior
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