Since 1954, Borromeo Seminary has been serving the Diocese of Cleveland by offering exceptional formation and a superior education to young men discerning a call to priestly ministry.
In 1954 Archbishop Edward Hoban founded Borromeo Seminary. He purchased a fifty-six acre campus in Wickliffe, which formerly served as Marycrest School for Girls, and he appointed Msgr. John Whealon as the first rector.
In 1979, the Capuchin Franciscans from the Province of St. Augustine joined the Borromeo community. Capuchin students discern the call to religious life alongside diocesan seminarians, and Franciscan friars teach some of the formation courses.
For almost forty years, Borromeo Seminary was known as Borromeo College of Ohio, a fully accredited, independent liberal arts college, where hundreds of men received their Bachelor of Arts degree. Many Borromeo alumni matriculated to St. Mary Seminary – the graduate school of theology in the Diocese of Cleveland – for further study and eventual ordination to the priesthood.
In 1991, Bishop Anthony Pilla secured the future of Borromeo by entering into an agreement with Cleveland’s Jesuit university. Borromeo College of Ohio became Borromeo Seminary, a collaborative seminary affiliated with John Carroll University.
Borromeo continues to have its own academic faculty and offers fifteen classes of formation in philosophy and theology at the Wickliffe campus. Seminarians also take courses at the John Carroll campus and receive a Bachelor of Arts degree from John Carroll University upon graduation.
To celebrate its golden jubilee in 2004, the seminary community made a pilgrimage to Rome and had an audience with Pope St. John Paul II. The seminary also named one of the courtyards the Pilla Piazza after Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, ninth Bishop of Cleveland and a member of the first graduating class of Borromeo Seminary.
In 2012, Borromeo Seminary launched Tolle Lege, a summer camp for high school seniors. The camp, which has been featured on national television, exposes students to the richness of the Church’s intellectual life.
In 2013, a year after beginning a new vocations initiative called the New XII, Borromeo Seminary welcomed its largest freshman class in nine years.
Under the leadership of its Rector, Father Mark Latcovich, Borromeo Seminary continues to provide St. Mary Seminary with the majority of its seminarians and the Diocese of Cleveland with the majority of its priests.
