News this week that the three metropolitan area dioceses will unite their priestly formation programs highlights yet another transformation for the diocesan center in Douglaston. Immaculate Conception Pastoral Center will be the site for the Cathedral Seminary House of Formation.
This residential program for college men considering vocations to the priesthood is really a step back to the future. When the Douglaston complex was opened in 1967, it was as Cathedral College of the Immaculate Conception, a four-year, live-in seminary-college serving the Archdiocese of New York and the dioceses of Brooklyn and Rockville Centre.
It opened about two weeks late in the fall semester because the building was not finished. When students finally were told to move, they walked up wooden planks because the front stone portico was not yet in place.
The grounds at the time lacked shape because of the ongoing construction. The chapel was nowhere near ready. In its place, the second-floor auditorium was used for Mass. The gym and swimming pool were in different stages of incompleteness. There weren’t even doors on the front entrances.
One evening as students were preparing for sleep, a general alarm sounded. The pipes in the unfinished chapel had burst and everyone was summoned with mops and pails to begin bailing out the place.
One thing that was ready was the faculty. Classes began and the life of Douglaston as a diocesan entity was underway. Msgr. John Fleming was recalled from North American College in Rome to serve as the first rector. A saintly fatherly figure, he steered a steady course as the house community searched for its identity in the midst of the renewal of the Second Vatican Council.
Unfortunately, Cathedral College could not sustain itself. The Archdiocese moved out and began its own college-residence. Enrollment decreased and expenses increased forcing the college to close and Cathedral Residence to open in the mid-1980s. At its height, Cathedral College, Douglaston, had been home to almost 400 students.
In its reincarnation, parts of the grounds were sold off to pay for renovations to the building and Immaculate Conception Pastoral Center was opened. College-seminarians continued to live there while attending other colleges. The building eventually became home to diocesan administrative offices, the Bishop Mugavero Residence for retired priests, The Marriage Tribunal, and Pastoral Institute. It also played host to major diocesan convocations and a diocesan Synod.
The most recent changes in Douglaston already have taken place. Last fall, college-age students from the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Rockville Centre officially rejoined their peers from Brooklyn and Queens as part of the St. Charles Borromeo Inter-diocesan Partnership for seminary training. You can read more about it in this week’s centerfold and back page.
There is more of an emphasis on the college-residence since the number of students has risen. Only the Mugavero Residence and Tribunal remain there.
There is a greater spirit of camaraderie that is evident in the faces of the students who are helping give birth to this new phase of Douglaston.
The one constant is that Msgr. Conrad Dietz still teaches Philosophy classes to the students. He’s still asking the same questions about who we are and what is life all about. Some things change, but others remain the same.