Even without the cooperation of the government, attempts were made after the Council of Trent by bishops to bring the new seminary idea into operation in France starting with the Cardinal of Lorraine, the generally accepted leader of the French Church of the time, at Reims in 1567. His seminary followed the Roman and German College models and in turn other French bishops emulated his operation. By the year 1600, however, some of the new institutions had already been closed and the few remaining produced negligible results. In short, the Tridentine seminary had brought about no change in the training of priests in France. At this, the bishops retreated from the field and the challange was taken up by trainees (they could not be called seminarians at this time) and priests themselves.

In seventeenth century France there were a number of clerics below the rank of bishop engaged in an attempt to get a seminary system established. Nor were efforts by priests exclusive to France alone. But what made the movement in France unique was the emergence of three men who brilliantly developed the theory of clerical education so that their ideas transcended both the seventeenth century and France not only giving us the major seminary 'but also the basic assumptions on which seminary training is based today. In their time, all three knew one another and influenced one another. The first was Adrien Bourdoise who was still a trainee when he began to develop and put into operation his ideas, the second was the priest Vincent de Paul who was later canonized and the third was the priest Jean-Jacques Olier an aristocrat who completed the product and gave us the general model of the major seminary as we know it today.

Adrien Bourdoise was born into the peasant class in France during the year 1584 and his way to the priesthood, as would be expected, was via the apprenticeship system rather than the university. Not well satisfied with this means of preparation for the priesthood, he and a group of fellow trainees formed an association for their own self-betterment. The purpose of their organization was to prepare themselves in a practical way for the priesthood with special emphasis on some of the glaring needs of their time, namely proficiency in the liturgy and the proper care of individual church buildings. After his ordination to the priesthood a year later, Bourdoise, who was the guiding light of the group, settled with his confreres near the church of Saint-Nicholas-du-Chardonnet in Paris and it was at this parish that he began to develop what eventually led to his seminary.

From 1612 to 1630, Bourdoise concentrated on the concept of priestly community. He was convinced that the common life of priests in a parish was necessary for good service to that parish. And this was his ideal -- service. The priesthood, he thought, failed to live up to his ideal because of the lack of proper practical preparation. In his words, "If the tailors and shoemakers were as in-capable in their trades as the majority of clerics are in their profession, we should be very poorly shod and very poorly clothed." (2) Early in the development of his community, he accepted into its ranks priests who were seeking the practical everyday knowledge of running a parish. And since to Bourdoise this was the work of a diocesan priest, this was what should constitute his professional preparation. To this end, in 1618 be organized the priests of the parish of Saint-Nicholas-du-Chardonnet into a kind of an internship under the pastor as head. This program offered the shortest and best means of being instructed in the theory and practice of parish functions. To Bourdoise, the natural place for diocesan clerical formation was the parish and the natural faculty, the parish priests. The training of parish clergy was not to be placed in the hands of priests not engaged in parish work.

Between 1630 and 1643, the community idea was transformed into a seminary idea in the following way. Candidates preparing for the priesthood were now received along with those already ordained and were given a practical theological education as well as an internship for their future lives as parish priests. No set limit was involved in this training. Those who entered would be considered in the final stages of preparation for their priestly ministry. An interesting addition to the recruitment practice of the time was that candidates would be screened to see that they had the necessary characteristics and the proper dispositions.

After the foundation of Bourdoise had been in operation for some years at Saint-Nicholas-du-Chardonnet, Vincent de Paul described it as con-concerned with "turning out hard-working men for ecclesiastical duties …. Scholastic ( theology ) is never taught there, only lessons in moral theology and practical matters." (3) Even with this very practical bent, Saint-Nicholas did at times house younger candidates not yet old enough for regular professional preparation because Bourdoise was very interested in early recruitment. In fact, one of the reasons for a conviction of his that each parish should run a school was in order to recruit for the seminaries. However, in the admissions policy of Saint-Nicholas, Bourdoise clearly gave preference to priests and older candidates in proximate preparation for the priesthood. Then if space were available, a few younger candidates would be admitted as residents. That his seminary was successful was attested to by Jean-Francois de Gondi, the Archbishop of Paris in 1644 when he stated that from 1631 to 1644 more than 500 priests and clerics had been trained by the community of Saint-Nicholas. Bourdoise, then, by virtue of his idea that the paramount need of French diocesan priests was professional training for parish life, had found a constituency, young French clergy who felt the same need. As a result, the Archbishop of Paris recognized Saint-Nicholas as a true seminary and so from 1644 to the time of the French revolution, it existed as one of the official seminaries of the Archdiocese of Paris.

The idea of Bourdoise was adopted in some other dioceses in France, but as a seminary his institution was not widely emulated by bishops because of its parochial rather than its diocesan orientation. But Adrien Bourdoise had established the principle that eventually produced successful seminaries all over France. The seminary should be a professional school, primarily for students of sufficient age and ready for specific practical preparation for the priesthood.

For Vincent de Paul, a very influential priest during the first half of the seventeenth century, the seminary movement was only one of the many facets of the French Church in which he was active; and the central motivational idea that ran through everything de Paul did was the moral reform of the people of France, especially the country people. To this end, de Paul had started a society of priests called the Congregation of the Mission in 1627 whose function was to travel around France and stage intense religious experiences called "missions" in the country parishes of the French Church through preaching, liturgy and personal spiritual direction. It was de Paul's hope that at the end of such an experience in any given parish, the priests of that parish might be able to carry on the spiritual reforms in the lives of the people that the mission had started. However, de Paul found many of the clergy totally inept for such a charge. What disturbed him most was the moral condition of the country clergy. And this remained his primary consideration in the development of his ideas on the professional training of the clergy.

Vincent de Paul was born in 1581 of peasant class parents but his education for the priesthood did not mirror that fact. Since he was a bright and ambitious young man, his father had him taught Latin and then enrolled him in the local secondary school. While there, because of his ability, de Paul got a job as a tutor to a town family and this enabled him to pay for his own education. After spending only about two years at this school, he went to the University of Toulouse where he studied for seven years, receiving the bachelor of theology degree in 1604. During this period of study, he was ordained to the priesthood. In later years he also received the degree of licentiate in canon law from the University of Paris. As a university-trained priest, de Paul developed a circle of well placed friends and even became the chaplain to the house-hold of Philip Emmanuel de Gondi, General of the Galleys -- a post now more aptly called Admiral of the Fleet -- and brother of the Archbishop of Paris. By virtue of the kindness of this family, de Paul housed the early members of his Congregation of the Mission in the College des Bons-Enfants, an old student residence for the University of Paris which was signed over to him. On the death of the General's wife, de Paul received from her will a large sum of money to support his Congregation in order that it might be able 'to carry on missions without financially burdening the country bishops of France. In the course of his work, de Paul and his Congregation became well known and much sought after by these bishops. It was one such contact that furnished him his first opportunity to become involved in the problem of clerical training.

In 1628, de Paul happened to be travelling with a friend, Augustin Potier de Gesvres, the Bishop of Beauvais, when the Bishop told him of a problem he had. He was looking for the best and shortest way of giving some preparation to those who would present themselves at the coming ordination in his diocese. He had decided upon having the candidates stay with him for several days so that they could be given instructions in the basic necessities of the priesthood. The Bishop wanted to get to know these men before he ordained them since they would come from widely differing social and educational backgrounds. He invited de Paul to organize this orientation; thus, in September of 1628 de Paul came to Beauvais with two doctors of theology from the University of Paris and carried out the wishes of the Bishop. De Paul took the moral part of the orientation, speaking on the ten commandments; the two doctors took care of the other talks on theology; and finally instruction was given in liturgical ceremonies.

The orientation was a success and word of this spread to other dioceses in France. As a result, the program became formalized and was eventually put into practice in many areas including Paris. Called "retreats for ordinands", these sessions resembled moral and practical workshops whereby for a period of about ten days men about to be ordained would come together, hear conferences on priestly morality and receive practical instruction on the exercise of the cura animarum. On February 21, 1631, the Archdiocese of Paris made it compulsory for all those to be ordained to major orders in Paris to make the retreat. Thus, for the first time a compulsory period of preparation was demanded for the priest-hood in Paris, short as that period might be. It was out of these retreats that de Paul's basic plan for a seminary eventually developed.

In 1636, de Paul started a seminary for his own Congregation of the Mission at the College des Bons-Enfants. This institution was initiated along the same traditional lines as the early episcopal seminaries in France. Students were admitted at twelve years of age and were to be educated and trained until the time of ordination. Little is known of the early days of this seminary, but by 1644 its lack of success had clearly shaped de Paul's thinking. When his community was asked to take over two seminaries that would be of the same type, he wrote the following letter to one of the members of his Congregation:

The ordinance of the Council ( Trent ) establishing the seminary for youngsters of twelve years is to be respected as coming from the Holy Spirit. Experience makes us see, nevertheless, that as regards the age of seminarians, the plan succeeds neither in Italy nor in France; some withdraw before the time of ordination; others have no inclination to the ecclesiastical state; others retire into communities; others flee the places to which their education binds them and prefer to seek their fortunes elsewhere… It is a different thing to take students from 20 to 25 or 30 years old. (4)

Just what the genesis of de Paul's thought about opening his own seminary for students from 20 to 25 to 30 years old was, is not clear. However, the famous Cardinal Richelieu knew of de Paul's interest and gave him a gift of money to initiate this work. Up to this time, de Paul had some hesitation over committing his Congregation to the work of clerical education. The Congregation had been founded for the exclusive work of the evangelization of country areas in France. De Paul was not sure whether it was the design of Providence that he should change the purpose of his Society to include seminaries. After receiving Richelieu's gift, de Paul took this as a sign of God's will in regard to the work of his Congregation and in February 1642 received twelve older students into Bons-Enfants. These students he instructed and boarded for several years with the Cardinal's money.

Primary emphasis in de Paul's undertaking was placed on spiritual training but this spiritual training was carried out more by the process of living than by word. To this were added practical lessons in theology and, like Burdoise's training program, there was no set time limit. This new program which began at Bons-Enfants was called the seminary for ordinands and as its success grew, it was formalized into a set course.

The opening of the new program at Bons-Enfants caused de Paul to make some changes in the older program started in 1636. First of all, the older program was renamed the seminary of school boys since students entering at twelve years of age would be at that educational level. Then as space became a problem because of the number of ordinands entering, de Paul moved the younger students to another location in Paris, the property of the priory of Saint-Lazare, which the Congregation of the Mission had acquired in 1632. Here in 1645, de Paul opened Saint Charles seminary with the intention that into this seminary would come students of twelve years of age according to the directives of Trent and they would remain at this seminary through their philosophical studies. At the end of this study, if they still wanted to pursue the ecclesiastical life, they then repaired to the seminary for ordinands or some other institution to receive their practical preparation for the priesthood.

In the development of his seminary for ordinands de Paul looked for help to the seminary movements in France that had preceded his own. Thus his basic ideas about what the seminary should be, followed the thought of Adrien Bourdoise whom he much admired. De Paul himself mentioned that before the work of Adrien Bourdoise, a man was ordained and went into a parish with very little training. Bourdoise, thought he, was the true initiator of seminaries. From Bourdoise also he had inherited the conviction that seminaries be professional institutions and for this reason he thought all the courses should be along the lines of a practicum. However, as mentioned above, the motivational idea behind everything de Paul did was the reform of the country people of France. Thus, for de Paul, the most important professional attribute of the priest was his own personal sanctity and his primary work was the sanctity of his people. For this reason de Paul envisioned his seminary as a place where one would be trained for several years in virtue, prayer and the service of God; in ceremonies, chant and the administration of the sacraments; in catechizing, preaching and solving cases of conscience. For these duties only the important points of theology were stressed. In fact, de Paul cautioned moderation in study since too much knowledge might hinder virtue; yet at the same time his seminary was a collegiate institution separated from any parish so that the atmosphere was more reflective than active. As the years went on, however, de Paul saw the collegiate concept as less beneficial than the concept of an actual internship in the parish itself. For this reason, at the end of his life he considered Bourdoise's seminary more successful than his own. Whatever his misgivings were, de Paul's seminary was highly thought of by French bishops because it was suitable for a diocese and it attracted candidates who would spend their lives as country pastors. Its one drawback was that it lacked the type of appeal that would attract special work clergy. It remained for Jean-Jacques Olier to bring this group into the picture. But de Paul had done two important things for the seminary movement. He had added the concept of personal spiritual preparation for diocesan clergy to the practical training concept of Bourdoise and he had established the first actual distinction between professional and lower schools in the seminary system in France.

At about the same time that Vincent de Paul was starting his seminary for ordinands, Jean-Jacques Olier was beginning to develop his own seminary idea. Olier was born in Paris of an aristocratic family in 1608. His social class was that from which many of the French hierarchy was drawn, and because of this several times he was offered the episcopacy which he refused, much to the chagrin of his family. His parents had always hoped he would embrace the ecclesiastical state in accord with his social rank and they had collected several benefices for him to help his career. He was educated in humane letters at the Jesuit Trinity College at Lyons, did his philosophy at College d' Harcourt of the University of Paris from which he received the master of arts degree. He then entered the famous University of Paris Theologate, the Sorbonne, and in 1630 received the bachelor of theology degree. Faculty regulations demanded a two year interim before a bachelor could begin work for the licentiate in theology so Olier decided to spend this time in Rome studying Hebrew. Shortly after his arrival in Rome, his eyes caused him much trouble and he returned to Paris. Here he came under the influence of Vincent de Paul who became his spiritual director. In 1633 he was ordained to the priesthood and began to engage in the activities of de Paul's Congregation of the Mission including the retreats for those about to be ordained. Later he was very much influenced by Charles de Condren, the leader of a dynamic band of French priests noted for their educational activities in France. Under the leadership of de Condren and along with several other French priests, Olier was involved in a plan to start a seminary at the famous cathedral town of Chartres. It was to be an institution that would educate students for the priesthood who had completed their study of humane letters. De Condren died, however, before the project was actually begun, and Olier and his associates were left to their own devices. For a while the project seemed doomed, but in 1641 they settled in the town of Vaugirard outside of Paris to make a beginning.

The original concept of Olier and his associates began something like the early community of Adrien Bourdoise. Olier and his group would constitute a community of priests living the ideal priestly life. The community would then attract young priests and candidates for the priesthood who would want to partake of this type of living as preparation for their future lives. In essence it followed the personal spiritual preparation idea of Vincent de Paul, but the difference in Olier's community was the relationship between director and candidate. The directors led exactly the same life as the candidates and existed in the relationship of older brothers to younger brothers in the sacerdotal profession rather than the relationship of teachers to students. During the short period of time the community remained at Vaugirard, oppor- tunity for the development of an academic program was lacking although such was planned. But the concept of the ideal priestly life as the model for spiritual training became more sharply focused.

The community had been at Vaugirard only a short time before Olier was offered the parish of Saint-Sulpice in Paris in return for several of his benefices. He accepted this huge parish of 150,000 people and it was here that he developed his famous seminary. Saint-Sulpice was one of those peculiar ecclesiastical entities of pre-revolutionary France. It was the largest parish in the city of Paris and yet it did not fall under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Paris. Rather it depended directly on the Holy See and the representative of the Pope in this regard was the Abbot of the monastery of Saint Germain. The fact that the parish was extra-terri-torial left Olier free to develop his own imaginative ideas concerning the parish ministry and to actually put these ideas into operation.

At Saint-Sulpice, Oliter expanded his seminary to include two additional characteristics, those of study and pastoral application. These coupled with the characteristic brought from Vaugirard -- communal spiritual training -- completed the basic lines of his seminary.

In planning the program of studies, Olier wove together all the divergent pre-existing threads of clerical education and made them a part of the academic preparation of his seminary. First of all, he set limits to the professional training somewhat similar to de Paul's seminary for ordinands, Students were received only after they finished their ordinary studies and lower levels of education in a seminary context were not planned as a part of Saint-Sulpice. The curriculum covered the following: philosophy, scholastic theology, moral and positive theology. Those who desired to obtain theological degrees (and in Olier's seminary this was considered the norm) took their theology course at the Sorbonne. In the evening they would review what they had gone over during the day or have practical conferences on the same subject. Other students who did not want to study for degrees, or for some reason could not, studied at the seminary itself where they were given practical courses in theology. Both' groups together were given supplementary lectures on scripture and church history.

In establishing these academic limits, Olier modified one of the long standing patterns in French education. His seminary would encompass the study of both philosophy and theology. But the pairing of these two fields of study differed from traditional educational thought because philosophy was considered the crowning point of the arts course and coupled with literary rather than professional studies. But the incorporation of philosophy as part of the professional school made this course an adjunct to theology and placed the study within narrower confines.

During the years of study and community life, the student also engaged in a period of practical application in the parish of Saint-Sulpice which was almost a diocese in itself. This closely followed Bourdoise's system and, in fact, Bourdoise was actually an advisor at Saint-Sulpice for a while. This program consisted of catechizing young and old in the parish, moderating parish organizations, practicing liturgical offices and functions, and learning to administer a parish. There was even something of a post-graduate course for those destined for diocesan ecclesiastical offices. At the end of the total program, then, Olier expected to turn out a priest profesionally trained in the following way; spiritually trained by actually living for some years the ideal priestly life, completely equipped intellectually either by the degree courses at the university or by the more practical courses at the seminary itself and fully trained to fulfill ecclesiastical duties given him by the period of pastoral application in the parish of Saint-Sulpice.

The underlying philosophy of Olier's seminary was based on a concept of the priesthood as a profession that was broader than the concepts of Bourdoise and de Paul. While both of these men looked upon the function of the priest as essentially pastoral, Olier saw it as either pastoral or ecclesial. The ecclesial function was prepared for by those members of the clergy who might never do full-time parochial work but who could receive professional training at Saint-Sulpice as well as could future pastors. Thus, Olier created a seminary to take in every element of the clergy and this he did by maintaining that while universal priestly training was spiritual or moral preparation, the intellectual and pastoral preparation could be geared to the needs of the individual ' s future life as a priest. The high point of the practical results of Olier's theory was a document entitled A BLUEPRINT FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A SEMINARY IN A DIOCESE. This work was submitted to the assembly of the French Clergy in the year 1651 by the bishop of Vabres, Isaac Habert. From that point on, the thought of Olier became the leaven for the seminary movement in France.

Olier called his professional school for diocesan priests the "grand seminaire" which rapidly spread throughout the French-speaking world. Its ultimate triumph, however, began in the United States. During the French revolution, a group of priests of Saint-Sulpice came to the new American nation and started its first seminary, Saint Mary's in Baltimore. In 1884 the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore -- a meeting of the bishops of the United States to standardize Catholic practice in that country -- was held at this seminary. During this meeting, the question of seminaries was a prime topic and the major seminary was standardized in the United States as a six-year institution with the study of philosophy and theology coupled with the proper spiritual and practical training. The experts involved in drawing up this document were priests of Saint Sulpice. This document later became the model for the section of the Code of Canon Law which first canonized the major seminary for the whole Catholic world in the early part of the twentieth century and which led to the second and more important approval, the already mentioned statement of the Second Vatican Council.

So it is, then, that the question "Does the seminary program blend properly the practical with the theoretical in preparing students for the priestly ministry?" is at the heart of what a major seminary is all about; and year after year those of us involved in this work will continue to hear this question asked. For this reason also, the major seminary will never be a place with one standard course or curriculum but will always be in the process of becoming the best possible training institution for future priests of a given time and given Church.

The following sources were used in the preparation of this paper.

Abelly, Louis. LA VIE DU VENERABLE SERVITEUR DE DIEU,VINCENT DE PAUL. 3 vols. Paris: F. Lambert, 1664.

Broutin, Paul. LA REFORME PASTORALE EN FRANCE AU XVIII SIECLE. 2 vols. Paris: Desclee, 1956.

Coste, Pierre, ed. SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL: CORRESPONDENCE, ENTRETIENS, DOCUMENTS. 14 vols. Paris :Libraire Lecoffre J. Gabalda,1920-1925

－ ,THE LIFE AND WORKS OF ST. VINCENT DE PAUL.Translated by Joseph Leonard. 3 vols. Westminster: The Newman Press, 1952.

Degert, Antolne. HISTOIRE DES SEMINAIRES FRANCAIS JUSQU'X LA REVOLUTION. 2 vols. Paris: Beauchesne, 1912.

Descourveaux, Philbert. VIE DE MONSIEUR BOURDOISE. Paris: F. Fournier, 1714.

Faillon, Etienne-Michel, VIE DE M. OLIER, FONDATEUR DU SEMINAIRE DE SAINT-SULPICE. 4th ed. 3 vols. Paris: Poussielgue, 1873.

Icard, Henri-Joseph. TRADITIONS DE LA COMPAGNIE DES PRETRES DE SAINT-SULPICE POUR LA DIRECTION DES GRANDS-SEMINAIRES. Paris: Libraire Victor Lecoffre, 1886.

Letourneau, Georges. LA MISSION DE JEAN-JACQUES OLIER. Paris: Libraire Victor Lecoffre, 1906.

Migne, Jacques P., ed. OEUVRES COMPLETES DE-M.OLIER, FONDATEUR DE LA SOCIETE ET DE SEMINAIRE DE SAINT-SULPICE. Paris: Gamier Brothers, 1856.

Pourrat, Pierre. THE LIFE OF FATHER OLIER. Translated by William Reilly. Baltimore: The Voice Publishing Company, 1932.

Roche. Maurice A. SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL AND THE FORMATION OF CLERICS. Fribourg: The University Press, 1964.

Schoenher, Pierre. HISTOIRE DU SEMINAIRE DE SAINT-NICHOLAS-DU-CHARDONNET. 2 vols. Paris: Societe Saint-Augustin, 1909.

SEMINARIA ECCLESIAE CATHOLICAE. Vatican: Typis Polyglottis, 1963.

Willaert, Leopold. APRES LE CONVILE DE TRENTE. Vol. XVIII of HISTOIRE DE L'EGLISE. Edited by Augustin Fliche and Victor Martin. 26 vols. Paris: Bloud & Gay, 1940--.

Leflon, Jean. "M. Olier et la fondation des seminaires supliciens." ETUDES, CCVC (November, 1959), 205-224.　

2 ADRIEN BOURDOISE. "Sentences chretiennes et clericales," pp. i-ixiii in Philbert Descourveaux, VIE DE MONSIEUR BOURDOISE (Paris: F. Fournier, 1714), p. xxxvi.

3 Pierre Coste, ed., SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL: CORRESPONDENCE, ENTRETIENS, DOCUMENTS (14 vols. Paris: Libraire Lecoffre J. Gabalda,1920-1925), XIII, 185.

4 IBID, II. 459.