Notre Dame Seminary Graduate School of Theology

The establishment of a diocesan seminary in lower Louisiana was a keen concern of Bishop Louis Dubourg (1815 – 1826). It also proved a point of honest disagreement between himself and Bishop Joseph Rosati, C.M., the first Rector of St. Mary’s Seminary of the Barrens in upper Louisiana (1818), and his coadjutor since 1824. Bishop Rosati reasoned that, although property was available for a seminary on a thousand-acre site donated for that purpose by Father Bernardo de Deva in Platteville on Bayou Lafourche, priests were too scarce in both upper and lower Louisiana to assure staffing adequately a second seminary. Bishop Dubourg’s plan was finally realized by Bishop Antoine Blanc (1835-1860) who, in 1838, negotiated an agreement with Father John Timon, C.M., Superior of the Congregation of the Mission or Lazarist Fathers, to open a seminary in Platteville next to Assumption Church on Bayou Lafourche. The official name of the institution was “The Ecclesiastical Diocesan Seminary of St. Vincent de Paul,” but it was popularly known as Assumption Seminary. The first rector was Father Bonaventure Armengol, C.M. In describing the building, the editor of the 1839 issue of the Catholic Almanac noted, “The house … is 75 feet long, 50 feet deep and two stories high, with a basement.” This brick building housed seminarians until 1855 when fire completely destroyed it. The students moved to Faubourg Bouligny, a New Orleans suburb, and lodged in the rectory of St. Stephen’s Church on Napoleon Avenue.