Sacred Heart Major Seminary
[5] Enrollment soon outstripped the capacity of the two cramped houses on Martin Place and later an apartment building on nearby Alexandrine Avenue.
After a successful fundraising campaign in 1920–1921, Bishop Gallagher purchased twenty-four acres of farmland in February 1923[7] and began construction of a new facility at the corner of Chicago Boulevard and Linwood Avenue.
[8] The new building, designed in Gothic Revival style (see "Architecture" below), opened on September 22, 1924, at the end of the trolley line across the street from one of the earliest Detroit suburbs, the exclusive Boston-Edison subdivision.
[5] Some significant happenings during Sacred Heart's mid-century decades include the granting of the academic charter and first degrees awarded, 1931; the seminary celebrates as the Detroit diocese becomes an archdiocese and Edward F. Mooney becomes the first Archbishop of Detroit, 1937; and the seminary community exceeds ninety percent participation in the federal war stamp and war bond program and receives the "Minute Man" flag, 1944.
[10] The student body and faculty contributed to the war effort by raising money to purchase two ambulances for use by the armed forces.
[11] A highlight for the seminarians: The college Class of 1943 raised funds through a "Movie Drive" to purchase two 35 millimeter feature film projectors.
He arrived by helicopter, no less, touching down on an improvised heliport on the seminary grounds, after flying into Detroit Metropolitan Airport from Rome.
[16] A significant Lilly Endowment grant allowed the Institute for Ministry's leadership, faculty members Dean Patricia Rennie Sr. Mary Lou Putrow, and Dr. Patricia Cooney Hathaway, to revamp the MAPS curriculum to include pastoral and spiritual formation for the program's lay ministry students.
[17] With the closing of the archdiocese's graduate-level St. John's Provincial Seminary in 1988, Sacred Heart was re-founded under Cardinal Edmund Szoka, archbishop of Detroit.
The STB and STL are "ecclesiastical" degrees, as they are authorized by the Congregation under the seminary's aggregate relationship with the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
The curriculum stresses social analysis from a Catholic perspective, family and bio-ethical issues, and modern catechetical techniques, so that graduates can express in fresh ways the teachings of the Church.
At the same time, the STL is a strenuous academic program that fully prepares students for doctoral studies, the seminary maintains.
)[22] As the seminarian and lay student enrollment continued to increase beginning in the late 1990s, Sacred Heart's leadership decided to invest resources into upgrading the campus building and grounds.
"That we have outgrown the seminarian residence rooms originally set up for the Theologate when it opened in 1988 is a great sign that God is blessing Sacred Heart's service to the Church," said rector Bishop Allen Vigneron at the time.
The liturgy lab was updated in 2004 with an instructional whiteboard, new sound system, and a digital camera with video monitor to record and playback students homilies.
To better simulate a church setting, the renovated lab incorporated a full-immersion baptismal font, fully furnished altar area, confessional, and pews.
[25] Through the donation of an alumnus/benefactor, the seminary was able to break ground in May 2014 to construct a quarter-mile running track for the use of students, resident priests, faculty, and staff.
It is named after the late auxiliary bishop of Detroit, a Sacred Heart high school and college alumnus and accomplished athlete.
[26] Beyond its general use, the seminarians have begun an annual track meet held in the fall, in which the men compete among themselves in athletic events.
[27] Another significant benefactor donation allowed Sacred Heart to "expand its footprint" by purchasing six vacant city plots totaling 2.5 acres directly west of the seminary campus, in March 2016.
The sanctuary window depicts the Risen Christ surrounded by his twelve apostles, symbols of the Seven Sacraments, angels representing the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, and is peaked by the coat of arms of Bishop Gallagher, the founder of the seminary.
[32] Margaret Bouchez Cavanaugh,[33] a well-known Michigan stained glass artist, designed the windows of the college and theologate chapels in the early 1990s in a contemporary style.
The chapel windows in the graduate dormitory depict the Creation Story of Genesis 1 in a "spiral, curvilinear movement," while the chapel windows in the undergraduate dormitory depict the Life of Christ along with the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecoast, also in Cavanaugh's signature curvilinear style that is reminiscent of Cubism.
[34] Sacred Heart's first-floor hallways, main chapel, and undergraduate dormitory chapel contain the largest collection of Pewabic ceramic tile in Michigan and perhaps second largest in the country after the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.[35] The custom-made architectural tile features extravagant multi-colored floral designs and multiple religious symbols, along with the zig-zag patterning popularized by the Arts and Crafts movement.
Pewabic tile, with its innovative iridescent glazing, was developed in Detroit by Mary Case Perry Stratton at her pottery and studio in 1903.
The oak pews were removed and refinished, and the brick and limestone walls were cleaned of soot caused by the fire and decades of candle smoke.
[39] The seminary also offers a graduate certificate in the New Evangelization for those students, ordained or lay, who wish to do studies in this field without formally enrolling in the STL program.
Francis Canfield, states that during the first day of the riot, July 23, three men entered the seminary grounds and "paint[ed] brown" the face, hands, and feet of the Sacred Heart of Jesus statue.
The life-sized statue, erected in 1957 to commemorate Pope Pius XII's encyclical on devotion to the Sacred Heart, is located in a stone grotto facing the corner of Chicago Boulevard and Linwood Avenue.
Community activists expressed outrage, believing the seminary leadership ordered the statue to be repainted white when the new school year opened.
