In 1981, Pope John Paul II announced that every Catholic seminary in the United States would undergo a formal evaluation by the Congregation for Catholic Education. Over the next nine years, Bishop John Marshall of Vermont visited all 501 American seminaries. On this date in 1990, The Fargo Forum reported on the glowing review for Cardinal Muench Seminary in Fargo.
Cardinal Muench Seminary had many unique aspects. It was the only seminary in the United States that enrolled both high school and college students. It had also forged a unique partnership with North Dakota State University, where college seminarians attended classes and earned their degrees, while the seminary provided five professors who taught philosophy, humanities, classical languages, and theology on the NDSU campus. Every seminarian was also required to visit all 144 parishes in the Fargo Diocese to speak about religious vocations, an outreach program found nowhere else in the nation.
The seminary had long been the dream of Cardinal Aloisius Muench, Bishop of Fargo from 1935 to 1959. His successor, Bishop Leo Dworschak, converted a tornado-damaged convent into a seminary for high school boys, and Cardinal Muench Seminary opened in the fall of 1962 with 41 students in the same year Cardinal Muench died. Enrollment grew quickly. By 1966, a $1.9 million building, with dormitory space for 120 students, had been constructed on a picturesque, 30-plus-acre property along the river. College seminarians were welcomed that same year, following the agreement with NDSU. In 1972, the seminary celebrated its first ordained alumnus, and that same year opened its doors to men from 12 surrounding dioceses.
After peak enrollment in the 1970s, numbers began a steady decline. Only 39 seminarians remained at the time of the Vatican’s 1990 evaluation, and even the favorable review couldn’t reverse the trend. The last high school student graduated in 2001, and though the college program continued, enrollment kept falling. In 2010, the Diocese announced the seminary would close, and in May 2011, the final two seminarians received their diplomas, bringing 49 years of education to a close.
In that time, Cardinal Muench Seminary graduated 364 men. As of 2013, 123 had become priests. The building was eventually demolished, and more than 50 homes now stand on the land where generations of young men once prepared for a life of service.
Dakota Datebook by Trista Raezer-Stursa
Sources:
- Author Unknown. “Cardinal Muench Seminary,” Diocese of Fargo, https://fargodiocese.net/seminary, accessed March 24, 2026.
- Briggs, Kenneth A. “Vatican Will Investigate U.S. Seminaries with Aid of Bishops,” New York Times, September 23, 1981, pg. A16.
- CNS. “Vatican Study Finds Most U.S. Houses of Formation Lacking,” The Catholic Voice, April 13, 1990, pg. 13.
- Hilgers, DeAnne. “Vatican Gives Seminary High Marks,” The Fargo Forum, March 30, 1990, pg. A9.
- Schmidt, Helmut. “Goodbye to Cardinal Muench: Fargo Seminary Being Razed to Make Way for Housing Development,” The Fargo Forum, September 11, 2014.
