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A statue of Jesus greets visitors at St. Patrick's Seminary & University in Menlo Park. (CNS photo/Chaz Muth)
March 20, 2020
Catholic San Francisco
The 47 men studying for the priesthood at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University will complete remaining classroom work for this academic year online, the school announced March 18, 2020.
The decision arose from the “historic challenges that COVID-19 is presenting,” the Menlo Park school said.
“Spiritual and human formation meetings will continue as remote conferences between the seminarians and their directors,” Steven Terlizzi, St. Patrick’s director of marketing and communications told Catholic San Francisco.
“This week all seminarians have returned to their home dioceses for the remainder of the school year," he said. "Any upcoming ordinations are being worked out on a case-by-case basis with each of the sending dioceses. We currently have no known cases of COVID-19 at the seminary.”
The campus is currently closed to all visitors who are not on official seminary business, Terlizzi added. All faculty and staff who are not resident on campus are working from home as part of the current shelter-in-place directives. The main office of the seminary will be closed at least until April 14.
Seminarians at St. Patrick’s represent the San Francisco, Portland, Oregon, and Agaña (Guam) archdioceses, the Fresno, Honolulu, Oakland, Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Spokane, and Suwon (Korea) dioceses, and one religious order, the Contemplatives of St. Joseph in the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
Anyone needing to contact the seminary business staff, should email business.assistant@stpsu.edu.