Mary Immaculate Seminary

The Seminary of Mary Immaculate was a former Catholic seminary, located in Northampton, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It opened in 1939 to train candidates for the Congregation of the Mission, commonly called the Vincentian Fathers, and operated until 1990. The facilities then served as a retreat center. It is currently completely closed.

In 1912, the Vincentians made the decision to build a school of theology for candidates to their community based in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Prefect of the Vincentian minor seminary, the Rev. Joseph A. Skelly, C.M., was asked to dedicate his time to raising funds for the building of a new seminary. As a result of his labors, in 1936 the Congregation acquired a 460-acre tract of grassy fields and wooded land, at the highest point in Lehigh Township, near the palisades of the Lehigh River, about 12 miles north of Allentown within the Diocese of Allentown.

Construction began in 1938 and the cornerstone was blessed that year in a ceremony presided over by Cardinal Dennis Joseph Dougherty, the Archbishop of Philadelphia. The service was attended by 15,000 people.

The seminary held its first classes in the fall of 1939. The member of the first class were ordained after graduating the following spring. The seminary continued to serve the Eastern Province of the Congregation until 1969. By that time, the number of candidates to the Vincentian Fathers had dropped to such a point that the seminary was opened to students for dioceses of the region and other religious institutes. The last class graduated in 1990, the 50th class to have done so. The seminary had trained some 500 men for the priesthood by that time.

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