Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary

Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary

Archbishop Quigley Preparatory Seminary was a United States high school administered by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago for young men considering the priesthood. Located in downtown Chicago, Illinois at 103 East Chestnut Street adjacent to Loyola University Chicago and near Water Tower Place, it closed on June 22, 2007, and will become the Pastoral Center and headquarters of the Archdiocese after a year of renovations.
The predecessor of the school, Cathedral College of the Sacred Heart, was founded in 1905. George Cardinal Mundelein announced plans in 1916 for the building of a preparatory seminary at Rush and Chestnut in downtown Chicago, and named the school in honor of his predecessor, Archbishop James Edward Quigley.[1] Echoing the educational theories of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Cardinal Mundelein surrounded Quigley students with great architectural beauty:
"This will unquestionably be the most beautiful building here in Chicago, not excluding the various buildings of the University of Chicago."[2]
Quigley's Chapel of St. James,[3] with stained glass modeled after Sainte-Chapelle in Paris, was dedicated upon the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Archdiocese of Chicago and Mundelein's twenty-fifth priestly ordination on June 10, 1920.[4] Designed by the architecture firm of Gustav Steinbeck of New York and Zachary Taylor Davis,[5] with stained glass by Robert Giles of the John J. Kinsella Company of Chicago,[6] it is today listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is one of Chicago's most breathtaking spiritual spaces.
The Quigley seminaries have educated almost 2,500 priests,[7] two cardinals,[8] over forty-one bishops,[9] two Vatican II periti, separate recipients of the Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and, in sports, two members of the Basketball Hall of Fame, making significant contributions through Quigley alumni to the quality of life in America and beyond, and within Catholicism in particular.