St. Vincent's Seminary (Missouri)

St. Vincent's Seminary and College was an educational facility in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, which had two components: one was a college, providing a secular education of young men of the region, the other was for the training of candidates for the Catholic priesthood to serve in the Midwestern United States. The school was operated by the priests of the Congregation of the Mission, commonly referred to as the Vincentian Fathers, as a part of their mission since their founding in 17th-century France by St. Vincent de Paul. It operated from 1838 to 1979.

The Vincentian Fathers arrived in the United States in 1817, coming from Italy at the invitation of Bishop Louis Dubourg, S.S., Vicar Apostolic of Louisiana and the Two Floridas, to provide theological education for potential priests for his region. A parcel of land had been granted to them in a settlement 80 miles south of St. Louis, part of Dubourg's territory, known as "the Barrens". Under the leadership of the Venerable Father Felix de Andreis, C.M., they arrived in what was to become Perryville, Missouri, in 1818 and took possession of donated land. There they opened St. Mary's of the Barrens Seminary to fulfill the mission given to them by the bishop. This was the first institution of higher learning to be established west of the Mississippi River.

In addition to their educational work, Vincentian priests would visit various towns in the surrounding region to serve the spiritual needs of Catholics there, first arriving in Cape Girardeau in 1825. The Rev. John Timon, C.M., (later first Bishop of Buffalo) began to visit the town in 1828. Over the next several years he developed a sufficiently large congregation to establish a parish church, which was opened in 1833. A new pastor, the Rev. Jean-Marie Odin, C.M., (who became the Archbishop of New Orleans) took up residence in the town in 1836. Under his guidance, the Congregation opened St. Vincent's Male Academy on 22 October 1838, enrolling boys from the local area. The superiors of the Vincentians moved the novitiate for candidates to their Congregation from St. Mary's to St. Vincent's in May 1841. One of the first candidates to train there was Stephen V. Ryan, who was to become Bishop of Buffalo.

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