University of Mary and Diocese of Phoenix launch first-ever Catholic seminary in Arizona

 

CNA Staff, Apr 12, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

A Catholic liberal arts university based in North Dakota is partnering with the Diocese of Phoenix to develop Arizona’s only Catholic seminary.

Despite now being home to more than 2 million Catholics, the Diocese of Phoenix had no seminary of its own for more than 50 years.

Nazareth Seminary is working with University of Mary’s “Mary College,” a satellite academic institution partnered with Arizona State University (ASU).

University of Mary, also known as “UMary,” has offered Catholic studies and theology courses at ASU through Mary College for more than a decade. Through the “unprecedented” partnership, Mary College classes fulfill degree requirements at the large public university.

With the new diocesan partnership, Mary College will form seminarians as they pursue degrees in Catholic studies and philosophy with Mary College.

The seminary will continue to grow as Mary College plans to launch graduate-level degrees in 2026, when the college will offer master of divinity and master of arts in theology degrees.

The first ordination class is already being formed, with 27 seminarians currently enrolled at Mary College. By spring 2026, 10 seminarians will graduate from the program with undergraduate degrees.

Scott Lefor, the director of Mary College at ASU, said the timing of the partnership was “incredibly providential.”

“The providence that seems to be behind all this is just beautiful,” he told CNA.

Mary College first came to Phoenix in 2012 after Bishop Thomas Olmsted, now retired, invited UMary president Monsignor James Shea “to bring Catholic higher education to the valley,” Lefor recalled.

As it developed its seminary program, the diocese found that UMary at ASU already had much of the groundwork for a seminarian academic program.

“What a beautiful way for that relationship to develop into serving the community in this very unique and beautiful way,” Lefor said.

When the Diocese of Phoenix reached out to UMary, the university already had “a slight majority of what we needed in place,” Lefor recalled.

UMary faculty had already designed the philosophy major to align with the Program of Priestly Formation in case a UMary philosophy student were to go on to seminary.

“We had a ton of the courses already in place. We had the facilities, we had the presence,” he said. “It was incredibly providential.”

Nazareth Seminary: a parochial model

Nazareth Seminary is designed so that seminarians are formed within the communities they will one day serve.

While traditional formation for seminarians takes eight years and involves limited direct experience with parish life, the Nazareth Seminary is based on a model of formation that prioritizes parochial interactions.

Seminarians begin with community life and general studies for the first two years. Then, the young men stay at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Scottsdale for the third year of spiritual formation. Next, in the discipleship stage, seminarians return to full-time academics at Mary College while living in parish-based seminarian houses. Finally, for the graduate-level stage, seminarians study advanced theology while living in smaller parish houses centered on fraternity.

Seminarian houses are overseen by at least two priests who are in parish ministry and serve as mentors.

“It looks a bit closer to rectory living than we’ve had in the past with our seminaries,” Father Paul Sullivan, rector of Nazareth Seminary, told CNA.

This model ensures “more intentional, smaller communities” for the seminarians, “which hopefully brings with it deeper and more intentional friendships, accountability, and growth,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said this structure has “brought with it so many blessings.”

While Arizona seminarians were previously educated out of state — sometimes as far away as Ohio — Nazareth seminarians can have a closer relationship with the diocese and the people they will serve.

Sullivan hopes the structure will provide “continued deepening of the bond between the men who will be future pastors and their own dioceses, and the communities, and the people that they will serve as well as their bishops and the priests.”

Nazareth Seminary also presents a fuller picture of day-to-day priestly life, he observed.

“We live communal life together, priests and seminarians,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said he hopes this will help with discernment, enabling seminarians to “embrace” the priesthood for what it is, “in the midst of real community and real parish life that in no way is perfect but always in need of conversion and service and evangelization.”

Lefor said that for UMary, being a Catholic university, “there’s something special about being able to engage in the seminary formation.”

“We actually have a priest who’s an alum of UMary, the Catholic studies program,” Sullivan added.

“He’s been ordained for almost two years now,” Sullivan noted. “So he’s the first one to be connected to UMary who went to seminary afterwards.”

Community on campus

ASU has a “very busy” Newman Center located at the oldest-standing Church building in the valley, Old St. Mary’s Church.

“We’re this big Catholic compound,” Lefor said.

The seminarians are “active participants” in the Catholic community on campus, Lefor noted. They attend classes on the ASU campus in the Mary College building, which has its own classroom and study library. But they also participate in the campus Newman Center.

“They hang out at the Newman Center,” Lefor said. “They’re meeting — quite literally — the future leaders of their diocese, their peers.”

Nazareth House has been up and running for some years in its first, “propaedeutic” stage, as the seminarian program is being built up around a group of seminarians that recently started taking classes at Mary College.

“I teach some of the guys in my own class, and they’re just phenomenal young men,” Lefor said. “They love the Lord. They want to serve the local dioceses. And there’s just something healthy about them being able to be present in it and know the people — so I think it’s a great blessing.”