Ottr Catliolic Heritage in Texas
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Garriga, now Bishop of Corpus Christi. Two priests from Ireland com- pleted the staff of the Diocesan Seminary, Fathers Patrick J. Geehan and James F. Cassidy. St. Joseph's Seminary was born without much ceremony. One might say of its beginnings and its founders what President Lincoln said at the Battlefield of Gettysburg upon its dedication. "The world will little note, nor long remember what we do here; but it can never forget what they did here." The formal opening on October 2, 1915, was rather informal. Thirteen students were enrolled and classes were begun in the stately but somber mansion on Dwyer Avenue. Four additional students arrived during the next two months. But of the seventeen that started that fall only six persevered and became priests, one of them becoming eventually the present Bishop of El Paso. 61 For three years the infant Seminary continued on Dwyer A venue until Bishop Arthur Jerome Drossaerts, who was appointed to succeed Bishop Shaw when he was named Archbishop of New Orleans in 1918, decided to use the building once again as his residence. The new Bishop, destined to become the first Archbishop of San Antonio, had no intentions of closing the Diocesan Seminary founded after so many sacrifices. He immediately rented a ramshackle frame building known as the "Garden Academy," located in Highland Park, at the intersection of Rigsby Avenue and Adele Street, to serve as the new home of the Seminary. Somewhat crude as conditions had been in the original home, the "Garden Academy" proved to be truly primitive. Pioneers underwent no greater discomfort than the persevering staff and students in the new quarters. Neither gas nor sewer lines had penetrated this remote region of the growing city of San Antonio, and the streets were not paved. But their trials were short-lived. Within two years, they moved into the first building of the modern plant established on Mission Road where the Diocesan Seminary found its permanent home. Bishop Drossaerts was mindful of the sorry plight of his seminarians and lost no time after his arrival in launching a vigorous campaign to raise funds for an adequate Seminary building as the nucleus for a more suitable plant where young men of the Diocese and others might prepare for a life of service under the proper environment. The response to his efforts was prompt and enthusiastic. Funds were soon available and work was begun on the first unit of the new plant before the end of 1919. Work '2/bid., 184. The present Bishop of El Paso Is the Most Reverend Sidney Matthew Metzger, S.T.D., J.C.D.
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