Our Mission
Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to the glory of God the Father, we seek each seminarian’s configuration to the Heart of Jesus Christ, High Priest and Shepherd, so that he can shepherd whole-heartedly with Christ’s pastoral charity.
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary is an ecclesial community of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis preparing men for the ministerial priesthood of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church.
Our Story
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary responds to the new apostolic age - as the Church’s clergy and laity are being called, like the apostles of the New Testament, to proclaim Christ crucified and risen in a world that often does not understand or welcome Him. We prepare men to listen honestly, discern intentionally, and respond generously with missionary zeal.
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary remains always aligned with the Church’s wisdom and guidance on forming men for priestly ministry. We structure our efforts in accord with the benchmarks articulated in the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Program of Priestly Formation, Sixth Edition. These benchmarks help ensure that our seminarians’ human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral formation leads to their “necessary human, Christian, priestly maturity” (Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, 58).
Kenrick-Glennon Seminary’s fully integrated formation is enhanced by our commitment to cast into the deep, which has proved to prepare our seminarians well as they develop a stable, well-grounded interior life, advancing from self-knowledge to self-gift in the committed service to God’s people.
Our mission is to configure men to the heart of Jesus Christ. Kenrick-Glennon Seminary’s administration, faculty, and staff love and respect our seminarians as individuals. We know that not every seminarian is ultimately called to priesthood, and so it is our practice to accompany and assist each one in clarifying the Church’s vision of his readiness to life-long celibate priesthood. “The seminary is an immense and demanding gift,” Pope Leo XIV emphasized in a letter to Spanish seminarians. “God, the saints, and the whole Church walk with you, and in a special way your bishop and your formators, who help you to grow ‘until Christ be formed in you’ (Gal 4:19).” For the good of the man and the Church, we help each of our seminarians listen to Jesus in order to discern in a well-formed manner wherever He may be calling him.
“When I visited Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, I saw there were priests on the formation team that I wanted our seminarians to be around,” says Fr. Blake Dubroc, Vocations Director for the Diocese of Lafayette in Louisiana and President of The National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors. “I saw the whole man formed - that they take seriously the integration of all four dimensions while simultaneously caring for the man’s heart…I realized our men would be loved there and have great things asked of them.”
Today, as we form and educate men in discernment for the Catholic priesthood from more than a dozen dioceses and archdioceses, Kenrick-Glennon is one of the nation’s most respected seminaries.
Our Roots
The roots of Kenrick-Glennon Seminary trace back more than two centuries, as the first seminary established west of the Mississippi River. Later named in honor of two visionary shepherds of the Archdiocese of St. Louis - Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick (1806-1896) and Cardinal John J. Glennon (1862-1946) - it is located in Missouri on a park-like campus in the St. Louis suburb of Shrewsbury.